Biden attempts 'to put a dagger in the Reagan era' by arguing 'trickle-down economics has never worked'

Joe Biden.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In what The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein called a "repudiation" of generations of conservative tax policy, President Biden pointedly asserted Wednesday night that "trickle-down economics has never worked." Biden's critique of supply-side economics, delivered in his first address to a joint session of Congress, was "an attempt to put a dagger in the Reagan era," NBC News' Sahil Kapur writes.

The trickle-down theory, heavily associated with former President Ronald Reagan's economic policies, posits that tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy will help stimulate the economy and eventually lead to prosperity for the rest of society.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.