Choose your economic future wisely

The election will soon be history, but the ideology and different economic structures will remain. Will the middle class survive?

Version 1: The supply side, Reaganomics, or trickle-down economy, will prevail. The major features are reduction of tax rates on capital gains or corporate income and on higher individual incomes. Money will be appropriated for the top so that it would “trickle” down to the needy. This method led to both the “panic depression of 1896” and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Then came Reaganomics and we have not recovered yet. Between 1981 and 2007, the gap between middle class and the wealthy grew 300 percent. The theory is cut taxes and create jobs, where are they?

Version 2: Keynesian economics will return, this served as the model during the Great Depression recovery, World War II and postwar economic expansion (1945-1973) and helped spawn the development of our middle class. The Keynesian theory basically says, “rather than legislate prosperity to the well-to-do, make the masses prosperous and it will make its way up

and through every class that rests upon it.”

President Bill Clinton rejected Reganomics, inserted Keynesian, and the rest is history. George Bush again cut taxes, reverted to trickle down and destroyed our economy in four short years.

Money is being hoarded by corporations; an estimated $2.1 trillion just sits. Register, vote and choose wisely.

Charles R. Steele

Keokuk