Let's Give Trickle-up Economics a Shot!

A figure currently bouncing off the walls of the right-wing echo chamber is $1.8 trillion; the amount of cash the Bureau of Economic Analysis says major corporations and banks are holding in reserves. Republicans contend, erroneously as usual, business aren't spending the money to put people back to work because they're so hysterical over the Obama administration's socialist agenda.

First off, cash reserves have been dramatically rising since 1992 and as recently as 2006 -- which you'll recall was prior to the Kenyon-born, Muslim socialist snatching power -- stood at $1.6 trillion. This means cash reserves have increased $200 billion, a smidgen during a major recession.

Also, according to the Federal Reserve, industrial capacity utilization stands near a historical low 74 percent, the housing market is over saturated and consumer debt is close to record levels. What's more, worker efficiency and profit margins are near all-time highs thanks to corporations squeezing more work out of fewer employees.

So, why in the world would businesses draw down reserves?

Yet the GOP insists giving the wealthy even more money is essential to get the economy moving. This is the same supply-side economic tripe we lived through for 30 years that claims revenue not "wasted" on "confiscatory" taxation, "excessive" wages/benefits and "intrusive" government regulation is plowed back into expanding production and hiring additional workers.

Where the money resulting from the massive Reagan-Bush -- and need I remind conservative budget hawks, unfunded -- tax cuts was really plowed was into disproportionate profit-taking, off-shore investing and sabotaging the American middle class with cheap, foreign labor.

"Demand" economics, on the other hand, is the way the economy worked from post-War through 1980 when everyone prospered, workers as well as bosses. It holds that getting money, in the form of good paying jobs and middle-class subsidies like education, health care and Social Security, into the hands of consumers creates demand. Sales increase. Businesses expand. Employment rises. Tax revenues grow. Deficits decrease.

So, do we believe the National Federation of Independent Business that says poor sales -- not taxes, not government regulation, not labor costs -- have been the number one concern of small business owners since 2007 and extend the Bush tax cuts to the people who will actually spend it right here on Main Street?

Or do we return to trickle-down economics, allow Republicans to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage to including the wealthiest 2 percent and then watch as they use their windfall to buy third world factories, exotic financial derivatives, European luxury cars and chalets in Gstaad?

Anytime you hear corporate elites and their Republican lapdogs gripe about taxes and regulations, remember the fox only complains about the hen house being locked when he's on the outside.