Trickle down didn’t work in the 1980’s or anytime after that.
Trickle down did work in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and most of the 1960’s, it just wasn’t called “trickle down” at that time.
The difference was a punitively high tax rate that nobody actually paid, because they found better ways to spend their excess revenue than simply giving it to Uncle Sam.
It turns out that when the richest among us are forced to spend instead of lend, the rest of us finally start to earn fair wages.
Well, that’s not really “trickle down” as championed by Reagan, that’s more “use it or lose it”. He wanted to reduce those crazy high tax rates to give the rich the choice of whether to keep the money for later or to spend it now, with “trickle down” being the phrase to tell people that it’s fine, it’ll make it’s way out to everyone else… eventually?
People of color were certainly repressed during this time frame, but not because of punitive tax rates on the highest incomes.
I can’t think of any mechanism wherein people of color in the 1940s through the mid 1960s would have been better off if rich people were taxed lower. So, I would have to disagree with your assessment: The confiscatory top-tier tax rate did, indeed, benefit people of color, just not nearly enough to offset the harms of legislated segregation and institutional racism.
Trickle down didn’t work in the 1980’s or anytime after that.
Trickle down did work in the 1940’s, 1950’s, and most of the 1960’s, it just wasn’t called “trickle down” at that time.
The difference was a punitively high tax rate that nobody actually paid, because they found better ways to spend their excess revenue than simply giving it to Uncle Sam.
It turns out that when the richest among us are forced to spend instead of lend, the rest of us finally start to earn fair wages.
Well, that’s not really “trickle down” as championed by Reagan, that’s more “use it or lose it”. He wanted to reduce those crazy high tax rates to give the rich the choice of whether to keep the money for later or to spend it now, with “trickle down” being the phrase to tell people that it’s fine, it’ll make it’s way out to everyone else… eventually?
Yeah, that and the “rising tide lifts all boats”. He neglected to consider that most of us had “run aground” between the 60’s and 80’s.
It only worked for white people, not people of color
People of color were certainly repressed during this time frame, but not because of punitive tax rates on the highest incomes.
I can’t think of any mechanism wherein people of color in the 1940s through the mid 1960s would have been better off if rich people were taxed lower. So, I would have to disagree with your assessment: The confiscatory top-tier tax rate did, indeed, benefit people of color, just not nearly enough to offset the harms of legislated segregation and institutional racism.