In the presidential debate, Hillary Clinton claimed we tried trickle-down economics, in the Reagan and Bush years, and it has not worked.

When people like her use the term “trickle-down,” they’re referring to capitalism.

Progressive income taxation (where you pay higher rates, the more you earn) is not capitalism. Corporate and capital gains taxes are not capitalism. These are policies of socialism and wealth redistribution. Although Reagan and George W. Bush temporarily reduced the rates of taxation, those policies of taxation existed during their terms, just as they do now.

Social Security and Medicare are not capitalism. They are social insurance programs. Under a capitalist system, government does not guarantee health insurance or retirement pensions. Nor would a government, under capitalism, ever force people to fund such programs with payroll taxes. Both Social Security and Medicare were established decades before Reagan and Bush were in office.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not capitalism. Under capitalism, government would not regulate the private market for energy according to the government’s priorities. Government would not decide we have “too much” fossil fuel energy and “too little” windmills and solar panels. The market would decide these things, under capitalism. The EPA has been around since the Nixon years, well before Reagan or Bush.

Government-controlled currency is not capitalism. In an unhampered free market, which America originally was (at least for the most part), currency was privately controlled under a gold standard. The Federal Reserve, as we know it, inflates or deflates the currency based on political, short-range factors, none of which would hold sway in a private market.

The federal government would not bail out selective, politically connected financial institutions in a free market. The economic system where government subsidizes for-profit industries is known as fascism. Fascism is socialism in an even uglier, more dishonest form than socialism. For an illustration of what fascism looks like in America, look no further than Hillary Clinton.

College student loans would not be guaranteed by the government in a free market. Private, for-profit lenders would never indiscriminately loan to students, because it would be a recipe for massive college tuition inflation. Government has inflated school tuition by essentially giving away money, since most of these loans will probably never be repaid. This program existed during the Reagan and Bush years as well as the Obama years. There’s nothing capitalist about it.

I could go on and on. Federally mandated and controlled public schooling is not capitalism. A free market for education would be capitalism. We’ve almost never had that. OSHA, the DEA, the FDA, and the FCC do not constitute capitalism. Publicly run airports are not capitalism any more than a government-run airline would constitute capitalism.

I realize you might support many or all of these government programs and policies, as Hillary Clinton does. But they’re not capitalism. They were not capitalism in the 1980s, when Reagan was president, and they are not capitalism now.

When Hillary Clinton implies that we tried capitalism for a few years and it failed, she’s lying. The only time the United States ever came close to capitalism was the 19th Century and early 20th Century. Read the history books for the unprecedented economic growth, inventiveness and prosperity that overtook the United States at that time. The world was never the same after that period of authentic capitalism. We still ride on its coattails, though not forever. Contrast that with the relatively slow-growth and even stagnant economy of the present day, when socialist policies have overtaken most of the free market.

Socialism is a lie, and it requires liars like Hillary Clinton to perpetuate the lie. All of our present problems are due to socialist interventions in the economy. And those problems will only get worse, because people like Hillary Clinton refuse to acknowledge the truth.

If you don’t like the state of the American economy, then blame it on socialism and government interventionism. Those are the very things Hillary Clinton will intensify.

“Trickle-down” does not describe capitalism. Unfettered free markets lead to explosions of lasting growth and sustained prosperity. That’s what America achieved in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Since then, we’ve gradually abandoned those policies, and that’s why our economy is in decline, financed by unsustainable debt and unsound, government-controlled currency.

“Trickle-down” more accurately describes today’s economy. Government has so impaired the private marketplace that there isn’t much left but a trickle. Opportunity wanes as the free market fades into the sunset. All that remains on the horizon is the bleak stagnation and despair of Communism, unless we reverse course entirely and restore a dynamic, free-market economy like we should have decades ago.

Will anyone ever challenge Hillary Clinton, and her socialist comrades, on this point?

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1

Check out Dr. Hurd’s latest Newsmax Insider column here!