Trickle-down economics, or Reaganomics, is built on the tired promise that handing tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations will magically fix the economy through reinvestment and job creation. This is just a recycled version of the horse-and-sparrow theory, which basically argued that if you feed a horse enough oats, the sparrows can eventually pick through the manure for the leftovers. It is the same gaslighting we see with austerity measures where politicians ignore the actual damage they cause to chase some supposed “greater good,” even though their own policies usually created the economic mess in the first place. You can see it clearly in Arkansas with the new ABAWD food assistance laws that claim to encourage work but actually strip benefits from orphans aging out of foster care and families with kids over fourteen. These policies intentionally gut government revenue to benefit the wealthy and then use that manufactured budget crisis as an excuse to slash public services like education, infrastructure, and social programs.