Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, recently sent an email extolling Boeing for giving employees a year-end bonus. It is long overdue, Boeing having received tax benefits and other considerations from the residents of Washington state for quite some time.
She did not mention AT&T and its bonus program. The company gave $1,000 bonuses to approximately 200,000 employees. And now AT&T has announced that it plans to lay off about 4,600 employees this year.
Trickle-down economics just plain don’t work. Wealthy people do not spend the so-called “impetus funds.” If they wanted anything, they would have already bought it. The working poor, however, would spend every dime of it on food, housing, and health care.
The philosophical principle of trickle-down economics is that the rich will take not only what they need but what they want. The leftovers will then be available to the masses. This worked well in feudal times, when servants expected to eat at “the second table.” It may not work so well in a society where the servants expect to vote.
