Trickle down -- how long till it works?

Nearly thirty years ago now, Ronald Reagan slashed taxes 60% for the richest Americans. The 2010 Census showed that income and wealth disparity in America today is huge. The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record. The top 20% of Americans earn almost 50% of all income. Those living in poverty, a rapidly growing group, earn.3.4% of all income.

The theory of Voodoo Economics was that tax cuts for the rich always stimulate the economy, and thus pay for themselves while making everybody richer. But is there any evidence that is always true? Certainly, if taxes are far too high, a cut will stimulate growth and increase actual revenue even though the rate was reduced. But can that formula work forever? Can you cut taxes into negative numbers, where the IRS pays each taxpayer for filing, and thereby produce huge revenues? The fact is that from 1945 to 1980, we paid down the staggering national debt of WWII. We had it down to a manageable $1 trillion in 1980. Reagan’s tax cuts for the already rich tripled the National Debt to $3 trillion. Reagan was the only President in all of US history to triple the debt in 8 years.

How long should we keep running the Voodoo Economics experiment waiting for the rising tide to lift all ships? How long can the bottom dwellers hold their breath while they watch those in the yachts float ever higher over their heads? Does any of this really even matter, or is the ideology of perennial tax cuts more important than the facts of what those cuts actually produce?