This one is rich. There was never a theory called “trickle down economics.” That term was coined by Democrats who opposed the policies of Reagan. But trickle down referred to the idea that taxing the wealthy less would lead to economic growth as they would invest it in companies, thus “trickling down” to workers.
Ironically, this Biden plan is exactly like “trickle down,” except instead of wealthy people being allowed to keep more of their own money to invest, the Treasury will just give “community lenders” (i.e. banks) money to make loans. The banks don’t even need to pay it back!
These banks will, ostensibly, loan the money to small business owners (not workers) which tend to be the wealthier members of society. The idea is that this will make the business owners even more successful and wealthy, thus trickling down and helping workers. It’s government funded trickle down, i.e. fascism.
However, there won’t be much trickling, as $1.7B is less than a drop in the bucket on a national scale. It’s a PR move that will likely do next to nothing but generate a few headlines and memes.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/finance-banking/over-dozen-community-lenders-among-recipients-grants
It’s bizarre to see them seesaw back and forth that Trump is totally clueless and aloof, just golfing all day, then all of a sudden he’s a dangerous king/dictator who’s diligently plotting to seize absolute power.
▪️This one is frustrating because, while it’s nice to see the vigor and speed that DOGE is acting with, they’re also sloppy with some of their findings. This is not some bombshell, millions of dead people’s SS numbers aren’t being paid out to fraudsters.
▪️This problem has been known for some time, you can read an inspector general’s report from 2015 about millions of names on the SS “numident” not being correctly annotated for deaths, even though they were older than 112 (the oldest known American at the time).
https://oig-files.ssa.gov/audits/full/A-06-14-34030_0.pdf
▪️There are innocent explanations for some of these. Expatriates that died outside the country, for example. Or immigrants given temporary work permit who returned to their country, people issued new numbers for various reasons, etc. However, most are simply due to the govt not diligently keeping track of deaths.
▪️It’s embarrassing that the govt has millions of numbers on the numident that are ...
