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When I heard Mitt Romney refer (several times, as it happened) to the supposed Obama creed of “trickle-down government” in the first presidential candidates’ debate in Denver, I figured some wordsmith had come up with it for Mitt’s proprietary use. I thought it was marginally clever as a counter-punching response to the many, accurate attacks on Romney’s belief in “trickle-down economics,” but didn’t think it merited the several additional uses of it last night at Hofstra.
But thanks to TNR’s Tim Noah, we now know “trickle-down government” has a pretty extensive history in top-level GOP rhetoric, including presidential and vice-presidential debates. It was originally used in 1984 as a favorable term for what amounts to “stimulus spending” by one of Mitt Romney’s Olympics Boss predecessors, Peter Ueberroth. Alan Keyes (running against Paul Sarbanes in Maryland) deployed it in 1988 as a general attack on government-centric liberals. Both Poppy Bush and Dan Quayle used it in the 1992 debates to parry Democratic “trickle-down economics” attack lines—and either ironically or characteristically, Bill Clinton used it himself in a 1992 speech to disclaim any support for government as a thing in itself. Another twist on its meaning was provided by Democrat Chuck Robb in 1991, who applied it to Republican schemes to devolve responsibilities to states and localities without the resources to fulfill them (you know, sort of like today’s block grant proposals).
At any rate, Mitt seems to think it’s a killer, and I suppose it’s appropriate for a party that is determined to find in Obama’s cautious policies a secret plan for Socialist World Domination.
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T2 on October 17, 2012 12:53 PM:
I was surprised to hear Romney use that term about Obama....as far back as I can remember, it's been a standard policy point for the GOP - money will trickle down from guys like Mitt Romney (100 million IRA Account) to poor folks so they can buy bread and cheesy grits.
Gandalf on October 17, 2012 12:58 PM:
I have a friend who always says who do you want to trust to run things big government or big business and big money? Well the entire history of the world that we know of has shown that big business and big money don't give a rats ass about anything but making money. Of course there are always a very few exceptions but all in all big bus and money would sell your children if they thought they could make money and get away with it. Trickle down government? That's a laugh.
Michael Barber on October 17, 2012 1:02 PM:
No one has yet asked Bishop Romney about his churches plans for him should he get into the White House: http://www.janishutchinson.com/agenda.html
Gummo on October 17, 2012 1:18 PM:
When I heard the phrase last night, I had no idea what it meant, and I'm pretty up on this stuff.
I can only assume that, outside of hardcore wingnuts, the term left most viewers scratching their heads and going, "Wha'?"
kevo on October 17, 2012 5:23 PM:
Trickle-down government - a gibberish term used by hollow men to falsely paint our government for the people, of the people and by the people as a graffitied, pock-riddled monstrosity awaiting its demise by the next happy-go-lucky plutocrat running for office under the Republican brand!
The term defines its users far more clearly than what its users intended it to mean when they offensively utter it! -Kevo
Marko on October 17, 2012 5:32 PM:
Speaking of trickle-down government, why don't you trickle-down your tax returns, Mitt?
KarkAwark on November 10, 2012 2:42 PM:
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