During a discussion, an uncle of mine on FB said "some economists support it." Interested in learning and seeing other opinions I turned to google but could not find any evidence for it on the first two pages. I politely told him as much and asked for a source, I did not get one, and he did not concede the point.
I think the US population may just have seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Ben Stein and the "laffer curve" scene one to many times. That and everyone thinks one day they will be go-gillion-ares and then will want low taxes on the rich so best set low taxes on the rich now.
In SimCity cutting taxes can spur some growth but it really does not results in more tax income. The best way to get tax revenue in the game is to either invest in education or get tons of pollution. So there you go :-)
But really if there is good data to support Trickle Down please post a link, I would genuinely like to read it.
"Support" kind of implies a value judgment independent on positive effects. But, you're not going to find anyone supporting "trickle-down" economics, because "trickle-down" specifically is a rhetorical attack by left-of-center, specifically in the last few years.
Proponents will typically call their policies "supply-side." There are a couple pieces in here, but the three big ones (and they are distinct):
1. High government debt/deficit crowds out private investment.
2. High taxes discourage work/savings/investment.
3. Government spending inefficiently targets well-being.
These are all different. A lot different. You can totally think that taxes don't do a thing to discourage work, but that the government is still incompetent so taxes are essentially wasted. You also can think high deficits crowd out spending and be opposed to deficits and debt, but not be opposed to government spending per se. You can also think deficits don't matter, that government does a good job of spending money, but taxes are a big burden to growth.
Basically all three are different, you can pick and choose. Strong orthodox supply-siders believe all three.
#2 seems to be the most hotly contested, so here's a quick article that might provide some background:
http://voxeu.org/article/income-tax-and-labour-supply-let-s-acknowledge-what-we-don-t-knowReading the recent empirical literature, I have been struck to find that while authors may differ on the magnitude of labour-supply elasticities, they largely agree on the sign. The consensus is that increasing tax rates usually reduces work effort.
Since labor is incorrectly spelled with a "u," you can probably guess this isn't some right-wing American source saying it.
This guy goes on to use some labor-leisure preferences to sorta say it's still undetermined, but my reading is that he's an outlier: consensus is tax increases discourage work. It's not at all clear how much, or among which groups. For example, women tend to increase their work hours more when taxes are cut/wages are higher. There's a lot of substitution effect there.
Even Sweden used a dynamic scoring (IE, tax cuts boost economic growth) when they did their tax reforms 20+ years ago.
The specific claim "tax cuts pay for themselves" is total bollocks. I don't know ANY serious economist who actually believes that. The Kansas situation doesn't really surprise anyone.
If you want to see the supply-side thought on Kansas, look here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rexsinquefield/2016/07/18/kansas-an-unsung-hero-for-economic-growth/#2a0d003d58f4Significantly, every year since the tax cuts were implemented, Kansas has surpassed the state record for new business formations. When we consider that startups have decreased nationwide since the Great Recession of 2008, this achievement is particularly remarkable. What’s more, the Kansas unemployment rate stands at 3.7% – the lowest the state has seen since 2001, and well below the national average of 5.5%.
I think economists generally think capital is more sensitive to taxes than labor but I'm less confident on that.
Also, keep in mind that even if you think tax cuts might raise GDP to some extent, that doesn't mean you'll think tax cuts/spending cuts are a good idea. If we cut taxes by $700 billion initially, raised GDP by $1 trillion, and got $200 billion back, we'd still have to cut Medicare by 5/7. Most people would think that's a bad trade-off.
I'm personally skeptical of broad-based labor tax cuts and think taxes should probably increase, given the pressure on public finances. But I'm also highly skeptical that any of the proposed social programs that are left-versions of voodoo economics (free college, single payer) will perform any better.