Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023) • Hacker News Board

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#91

Post by win311fwg » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

regularization wrote: post #73

manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro... Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics…

That's not serious advocacy as trickle-down economics isn't a policy that can be implemented. The policy associated with trickle-down economics is known as supply-side economics. Trickle-down economics is something created for a comedy bit to express, in a humorous way, why supply-side economics doesn't work. Even if you don't buy into the underlying message of the comedy routine and believe that supply-side economics does work, you still cannot implement that comedy routine as government policy. That... doesn't make any sense. Clearly that guy you refer to was performing his own comedy routine.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#92

Post by jibal » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #80

ghurtado wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as if it's something that needs to be debunked. When half the country has believed something for close to a half a century, across multiple generations, you bet your ass it needs to be debunked. The fallacy of the "precious job creators" is as American as "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" The fact that you and I were not dumb enough to fall for it doesn't really help anyone in the grand scheme of things. The…

No one believes in trickle-down economics. As GP said, it's a pejorative straw man invented by its opponents .

[flagged]

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#93

Post by liveoneggs » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

manlymuppet wrote: post #59

liveoneggs wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said trick-down wasn't a real thing so how can you say it's different from supply-side?

By "not real" I mean it's not a real policy. They are different in that one is a policy and the other is not.

how about this - Trickle Down is the implementation of Supply Side theory

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#94

Post by smallmancontrov » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

win311fwg wrote: post #91

regularization wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro... Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics…

That's not serious advocacy as trickle-down economics isn't a policy that can be implemented. The policy associated with trickle-down economics is known as supply-side economics. Trickle-down economics is something created for a comedy bit to express, in a humorous way, why supply-side economics doesn't work. Even if you don't buy into the underlying message of the comedy routine and believe that supply-side economic…

"Supply-side economics" is a technocratic rebranding of trickle-down economics, adding just enough nuance to force the draw rhetorically while advocating policy that is completely indefensible to anyone who has enough time to properly examine the nuance.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#95

Post by dec0dedab0de » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:18 PM UTC

manlymuppet wrote: post #82

j16sdiz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying you can tell us, but you won't. If you are not going to tell us anything, why are you teasing us as if you will? Holding back discussion points is not a way to advance a discussion

You are right. I should be more forthright; I was answering elsewhere. Here's another comment I made that's relevant. """ I think supply-side economics deserves more nuance than simply thinking we need to make the tax rate arbitrarily low. The Laffer curve isn't the only thing you should look at, since where you tax can be just as important as how much you tax. Take corporate taxes for example. If one were to advocat…

Next time start with this level of nuance. Flippantly arguing semantics about controversial issues is not the way.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#96

Post by rahimnathwani » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

The paper talks about economic growth, income distribution and unemployment.

I'm mostly interested in economic growth, so looked at what the paper claimed about that.

It found that major, sudden reductions in taxes on the rich did not have any statistically significant effect on the trajectory of economic growth over the following five years.

But:

- Their sample is small. They only looked at relatively large, discrete declines in their home-grown measure of taxes on the rich. They did not look at all tax-rate changes.

- They did not look at effects beyond the five-year horizon, which means it would probably exclude the impact on people starting startups, as the successful ones usually take more than 5 years to start making serious money. (or did during the period the paper considered, even if timelines have subsequently accelerated.)

- Big sudden tax cuts don't happen in a vacuum, and I don't see a way to control for confounding.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#97

Post by win311fwg » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

smallmancontrov wrote: post #94

win311fwg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not serious advocacy as trickle-down economics isn't a policy that can be implemented. The policy associated with trickle-down economics is known as supply-side economics. Trickle-down economics is something created for a comedy bit to express, in a humorous way, why supply-side economics doesn't work. Even if you don't buy into the underlying message of the comedy routine and believe that supply-side economic…

"Supply-side economics" is a technocratic rebranding of trickle-down economics, adding just enough nuance to force the draw rhetorically while advocating policy that is completely indefensible to anyone who has enough time to properly examine the nuance.

Again, "trickle-down economics" was created by Will Rogers. He was never a policy maker, just a comedian trying to tell funny stories. Nor did he accidentally create a policy in a 10 minutes of rambling standup routine. If you listen to the routine you will realize that he was talking about things that had already happened. He wasn't some kind of hidden political visionary.

We can accept that "supply-side economics" is a policy rebranding, but it is not a rebranding of "trickle-down economics". That is abundantly clear. There has never been a policy known as "trickle-down economics".

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#98

Post by IshKebab » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #47

The most effective economic policy to help the impoverished is to tax the rich and give the money directly to the poor. The only reason this isn't common sense is because the rich have fought it for millennia.

Doubtful. The UK is practically at this point with generous benefits and a very progressive tax curve (you don't pay any tax on the first £12.5k of earnings).

It seems like all it does is lock people into poverty with unreasonably high effective marginal tax rates.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#99

Post by t-writescode » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #88

micromacrofoot wrote: post #47

The most effective economic policy to help the impoverished is to tax the rich and give the money directly to the poor. The only reason this isn't common sense is because the rich have fought it for millennia.

The poor will then give it back to the rich in higher prices for the same amount of stuff. The only real way to tax the rich is to ensure that the rich have to compete for workers by paying competitive wages

And by making it so that an employee can safely quit at any time without losing their ability to, you know, not get blasted by insane surprise bills - e.g. healthcare.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#100

Post by lifestyleguru » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #42

This is basically what happened in Orbán's 16 years in Hungary. He gave indirect tax cuts for the rich, or just generally everyone who is not living pay check to pay check (by hungarian standards it means you are rich). So for example installing solar panels came with a tax writeoff but the whole thing was setup that it only benefit who already have had enough money to install a full brand new solar panel system. So…

The same in Poland. Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary are oligarchic corrupted disfunctional hellholes. No, electing this new politician and party will not change anything. Without "license to steal and defraud" your life there will be miserable. Hopefully Russia will not take the easy opportunity and attack, but hey at least they'd erase the local "elites".