Republicans have been on this “trickle-down” economics kick for a long time, as William Jennings Bryan (D-NE) noted in his “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1896.

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.