The Debt Limit Cynical Game

Republicans agreed, at the last minute, to raise the limit until December. We will be back to this because the party of Lincoln and Law and Order is a cynical political party. Starting in the 1980s, with the Reagan revolution, the party has been committed to trickle-down economics. It’s not the first time a political party embraces this since the 1880s saw a similar economic and social ideology. Back then it also included social Darwinism, and we could argue a form of it took hold as well. Ironically it was first something embraced by Democrats, but the populism of the era meant the Republicans embraced it, becoming the party of business.

The idea of trickle-down makes sense as long as you don’t look beyond the surface. Those who are very rich will create jobs, and those jobs will trickle down to the rest of society, and wealth will as well. That is why those very rich, the wealthier the better, should face a lower tax burden than the middle classes, or the working class they employ. This is why in Republican speak these people are called job creators. They are also better, because in some cases they rose to the pinnacles of business from the same middle classes they support this is where Social Darwinism comes in.

Why is it that this never works? Republicans are forgetting human nature. Or that people who hoard goods, will hoard even more money. Most of this money that…