I’m man enough to admit when I’m totally wrong about something, and in this case, little did I know that those who espouse Trickle-Down Economics are still peddling it as such, unabashedly. The other morning while going into work, Jerry Springer was talking about one of his non-politics causes (I can’t remember what it was) and I figured I’d go over to the local right-wing conservative station, 770 WABC in NYC. The John Gambling show was on and Curtis Sliwa was on along with some other guest, and they were talking about how Bush (well, they called him the president… you’ll notice I never do) should be accentuating the tremendous booming economy and talking about how great everything is going with the US economy. The third guest, whose name I did not get, was talking about how he had been one of the earliest proponents of trickle-down economics, and that the current booming economy was proof, once again, that trickle-down worked. He talked about how the deficit as a percentage of GDP was the lower than ever, and how “in all the areas where tax cuts were given, the revenues are pouring in.” Needless to say, he did not reveal any details about where the revenue was pouring in from, and what specific areas of tax cutting had resulted in such a great influx of cash to the Fed. I love how no one needs to talk about specifics when they’re talking about trickle-down economics.

I would gather there are several reasons why Bush isn’t using the bully pulpit to proclaim how the economy is humming right along. The first reason is that people are really being socked from all directions by the high cost of gasoline. I drove by the local Exxon station today, and self-serve premium is up to $3.29 a gallon. There are surcharges on everything these days for extra fuel costs. I’ve talked here about how LIPA is charging me some $100 extra a month just in “fuel surcharge” fees added to my electric bill. Produce costs more because we’ve killed all the mom-and-pop farms in the US, and now heavily rely on industrial farming for our food. That means the food has to be shipped in from wherever it’s grown. When gas was cheap, this made a whole lot of sense… Grow where it’s economically feasible, then ship it. Today? Not so much. And then there’s the fact that every month we seem to hear of some giant American corporation laying off another massive amount of workers. Those who aren’t laid off often make concessions to keep their jobs, as evidenced with the recent Delta airline pilot’s union deal.

Bush’s poll numbers are low enough. He doesn’t need to go out proclaiming everything’s hunky-dory when people are having a hard time getting by. So much for the booming economy. If the economy is booming, it’s because the richest Americans have to be doing pretty well. The middle class is getting so small, I guess it doesn’t even make a dent anymore in the economic figures if we’re not doing so well.