Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.

The greatest trick that trickle-down economics ever pulled was its simplicity. The rules of trickle down are so easy to explain that even a child can understand them. You’ve heard this mechanistic warning again and again: if you raise wages, you kill jobs. If you raise taxes on the wealthy, you’ll hurt job creators. If you regulate business, you’ll kill business. It’s easy to say, it’s easy to understand.

And it’s entirely wrong, of course. The fact is that the economic theory the Republican Party—and many Democrats—have accepted as gospel truth for the past 40 years turned out to be a pack of lies. But who ever let an inelegant little thing like reality intrude in an elegant economic belief system?


Trickle down is why Republicans are great at pitching their policies to everyday Americans. It’s why, even though the economy thrives under Democratic presidents and grows sluggish when a Republican has the White House, the American people still trust Republicans much more than they trust Democrats on economic matters.

Republicans sold the Trump tax cuts with a shrug and a promise that the massive wealth transfer to rich people would pay for itself by trickling down to the middle class in the form of economic growth. Of course, the tax cuts didn’t do that—by most markers, the economy has been slowing down and even shrinking since the cuts went into effect—but the confidence with which Republicans sold their policy tricked many Americans into believing the cuts would work to their benefit.

In the wake of Trump’s election, Democrats seem to have finally, thankfully, woken up to the lie behind trickle-down economics. The days in which I had to argue with Democratic leaders about the importance of a $15 minimum wage have long since passed. But the absence of a bad theory isn’t enough.

What the Democrats are missing is a coherent theory of growth. Thankfully, one is becoming clear. I recently gave a TED Talk about how economics really works: The more we include people in the economy, the stronger the economy will be. After all, consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of GDP. Rich people like me aren’t the job creators—the spending power of the American middle class creates jobs.

Because the economic disparity has grown so glaringly huge, people are finally coming around to this new understanding of economics. And our policies are working: Studies show that raising the minimum wage is an unalloyed good for everyone and that paid sick days are good for workers, public health and employers alike. Yet Republicans still poll better on economic issues with the general public because even though they’re traditionally terrible at managing economies, they’re great at talking about economics.

If we can correct the American people’s mistaken belief that Republicans are stronger on economic issues, they will have nothing but craven racism and wackadoodle rightist identity politics to build a platform on. And I’m enough of an optimist to believe you can’t win a national platform based solely on fear and hatred. The Democrat who will beat Donald Trump is the Democrat who can best explain how the economy works and why it is imperative that we strengthen the American middle class.

Too often, Democrats fall back on appeals to fairness to discuss the economy. Raising the minimum wage to $15 is the fair thing to do, they’ll say. Providing a social safety net is an imperative for any moral society, they argue. And they’re right—those things are fair and moral. But you can’t feed your children with morality, and fairness is a pretty poor substitute for a paycheck. Democrats also must explain why it’s the right thing to do for the economy—why it’s financially better for everyone when we make sure that more Americans have money to spend in their communities.

This basic inability to discuss the economy trips up Democrats on every other issue, too. When pundits and conservatives inevitably ask Democrats how they’re going to pay for the "Green New Deal," or a public option, or massive infrastructure overhauls, candidates usually collapse into a stammering mess. The correct answer is that the economy is people—any policy that allows more people to fully participate in the economy will pay for itself because economies that broadly include more people create more prosperity for everyone.

Since we have a good, simple, and true story of how the economy works, why aren’t we telling it? In the most recent Democratic debate, the 10 presidential candidates barely mentioned jobs, the middle class or other important economic issues that most people care about. Even when candidates devoted their opening and closing statements to the economy, debate moderators seemed adamant in their refusal to ask an economic question. Health care and gun responsibility are vital issues that affect every American, but with the scent of a recession in the air and with wealthy 1 percenters like me pulling in something to the tune of $2 trillion a year at the expense of the middle class, people need to believe that Democratic politicians know what they’re talking about.

Presidential elections are often won or lost on the economy. So let’s talk economics, Democrats. No, really: We need to talk about economic issues—a lot and in great detail. In fact, I’m calling on my friend Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to establish a presidential debate focusing solely on economics.

The importance of an economic debate is twofold. First, it will emphasize the Democratic Party’s commitment to workers, highlighting candidates’ core beliefs in policies including a higher overtime threshold for the middle class, higher taxes on the wealthy, debt forgiveness and corporate responsibility. This is vital in an environment in which Republicans are trusted more than Democrats on business matters.

And secondly, it will convince Americans that Democrats have answers to the real problems they’re facing every day. Ask any messaging expert and they’ll tell you the key to getting a message out there is simple: repetition, repetition, repetition. It’s only by repeating these economic truths again and again in clear and crisp language that the American people will understand our story. The first Democrat to successfully close the economic loop—to argue clearly and intelligently and simply that it’s not just a moral imperative to raise wages for most Americans and raise taxes on the wealthy, but good business as well—will have my support. And I’m willing to wager that they will find the support of a majority of Americans, too.

It seems hard to believe right now, in the heat of the impeachment discussion, but when you ignore all the spin and hot takes and assorted noise of the pundit class about the latest outrage committed by Donald Trump, the 2020 presidential election will likely come down to the exact same issues that every election ever comes down to: Can we pay our bills on time? Can we count on the same financial stability over the next 10 or 20 years that our parents enjoyed? Will our kids have a better life than we had? It all comes down to economics. And that’s why it’s vital that our presidential candidates demonstrate that they can answer these questions with grace, compassion and understanding. Let’s have that debate.