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Trickle-down Economics, Chapter 2023 – Daily Montanan [1]

['More From Author', 'July', 'Russell Rowland']

Date: 2023-07-18  

Most of the credit/blame for trickle-down economics has generally been directed toward Ronald Reagan. But anyone who suffered through the Reagan years knows that the idea of Reagan creating some kind of economic policy is laughable. What he did do well was messaging. Whether or not he believed, or even understood, the message he was delivering was immaterial. Reagan sold ideas, and one of the biggest sales jobs he did was the idea that giving wealthy people huge tax breaks would help everyone. And his supporters bought it, even after some of his fellow Republicans, including his soon-to-be Vice President, George Bush, called the plan ‘voodoo economics.’ The results were ugly. The Reagan administration dismantled the middle class, and decimated the health care system, putting tens of thousands of mentally disabled people on the streets.

Despite the fact that jobs have decreased under every single Republican president since, and despite the fact that the national debt has skyrocketed under every single Republican president since, this message still resonates with Republican voters. And the reason it still resonates is because Republican politicians keep trotting out this lie whenever they want to give themselves and their wealthy friends a tax break. It’s an infuriating pattern that is a complete insult to the intelligence of any thinking person in America.

Meet Russell Rowland Today, the Daily Montanan is thrilled to announce that twice a month — every other Tuesday — we will be carrying noted author, radio host and writer Russell Rowland as part of our commentary line-up. Russell Rowland is the author of five novels, as well as “Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey.” He also hosts a radio show called 56 Counties on Yellowstone Public Radio. You can access his radio show, his podcast about Montana books, and any of his other work at russellrowland.com.

But as most historians will tell you, trickle down economics was around way before Reagan. And perhaps the men who practiced this deception better than anyone in American history came from right here in Montana. In 1884, political leaders in the Montana Territory held the first Constitutional Convention so they could apply for statehood. Copper Kings William Clark and Marcus Daly. both members of the delegation, would later become bitter rivals, but they got along well enough to lobby their fellow conventioneers into electing Clark as president of the convention. Then they worked to create a provision that guaranteed the mining industry an absolutely criminal tax break. Mining companies would determine their taxes based only on land and equipment, without any consideration for their proceeds.

This was when the Butte was known as ‘The Richest Hill on Earth.’ So the amount of money coming out of those mines was unprecedented, and these companies paid nothing in taxes for their product. Montana lost out on millions of dollars in revenue, money that went directly into the pockets of Clark and Daly. And the worst part was that this loophole was not addressed for another forty years, long after Daly was dead and Clark had moved to New York and built the largest home in the city.

These two men convinced their workers, who were barely making a living, that they were only paying what they could afford, and the miners had no choice but to accept this explanation. Clark and Daly knew that if they paid their workers just enough to keep them fed, they wouldn’t have the energy or the resources to fight them.

Clark and Daly also had a stranglehold on most of the major newspapers in Montana, so efforts to reveal these practices were destroyed in the press. Potential strikers were made out to be unpatriotic, disloyal, troublemakers. The disdain these men showed for the people who made them wealthy carried over into Clark’s attitude when he left Montana. He spent the rest of his life collecting art, and never put a penny into cleaning up the toxic mess he left behind.

And now it’s happening again. Gov. Greg Gianforte and his army of Republican legislators went to war this past session on the working class of Montana. And the irony is once again that the people who are going to suffer the most from their actions are their most ardent supporters. Gianforte announced what he was very happy to call ‘the biggest tax break in Montana history,’ but what he has conveniently brushed over is the fact that this money came from a surplus that came into the state during the pandemic. Montana collected a record $2.6 billion in government funds, about twice what we usually receive from the feds. And of course all tax money can be traced back to us, the taxpayers. So for them to crow about paying us money that we provided to begin with is disingenuous.

But the other catch is that rather than use that huge surplus for some of the most pressing needs facing Montana, like a rising crisis in health care, or the millions of dollars set aside to feed hungry school kids, they spent this past session creating legislation that makes life more difficult for Montanans who are minding their own business. On top of that, the rebate that is available, which Montanans have to apply for, is being completely overridden by a huge increase in property taxes for everyone but the most wealthy. Gianforte has taken a page from the Reagan playbook, holding out a single shiny coin with one hand while digging into our back pockets with the other.

The disdain that Gianforte has shown for the people of Montana has been apparent from the time he became a public figure, whether it was refusing to pull out of the race after he assaulted a reporter, or illegally killing a wolf, or trying to prevent people from crossing his property. It continues to baffle me that the people who are hurt most by this man’s actions all fall in line and cast their votes for him. But it is apparently an American tradition.

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