By debt I assume you mean so-called, federal government debt. The government only appears to have debt from the perspective of the private sector lender who, again from their private sector perspective, appears to be loaning money to the government at interest. Looked at from a disembodied government perspective, however, it's immediately obvious the government is not borrowing at all, but instead, and in addition to adding some money (interest) into the private sector, is merely changing temporarily the form that some of the our private sector money takes. The only real debt is all private sector debt arising entirely from either unpaid tax obligations or from private sector borrower-lender transactions. Without any deficits the private sector would have no money for savings and investment. The deficit is where the private sector's savings and investment money originates from! In fact, without deficits there would be no after-tax money at all left in the private sector. There would still be money to pay taxes assuming the government bought goods and services from the private sector or made transfer payments into the private sector. Without deficits, however, there would be no money left in the private sector after taxes were paid. There is something extremely "social" about deficits.
How shall we interpret this? Should we, therefore, just be hanging about waiting for the Danes, Norwegians and Sweds to spontaneously acquire the wealth distribution of the Americans? And how about communism, isn't that an extreme form of socialism? Some, perhaps all, communist, New World Indian tribes enjoyed a very equal wealth distribution. They seemed to have had no concept of private property. Their society appears to have been largely oligarch free. Wouldn't this be an example of highly successful socialism as judged by the criterion of wealth distribution? This near equality seems to have lasted up until the present day among Native Americans living on reservations. Apparently not even the U.S. cavalry could beat all the socialism out of Native Americans.
that's correct, however it is also true the descriptor "Trickle Down" was used in a derogatory sense by critics of supply side economics. The most accessible, scholarly critique of Supply Side economics that I am aware of can be found in Australian Economist John Quiggin's little book "Zombie Economics". (The title was later ripped off)
Can you tell the Singapore Government not to have a fat reserve? They have no net debt yet their citizens are crazy rich?
Like the U.S., Norway, Canada, Switzerland, etc., the government of Singapore issues bonds (AAA); yet has no debt. Many Americans wouldn't like Singapore's highly regulated society with a vast and very deep social (and socialist!!!) safety net, until they experienced it first hand of course. (Higher education and medical care are government paid, and you will not find people living on the streets.) We in the U.S.A. can't even duplicate Singapore's medical care with our totally socialist VA. (It's the best we can do, but it still fails.) Singapore, incidentally, has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world. Singaporeans understand, as do citizens of all highly developed countries other than those in U.S.A. of course, that the requirements of a good medical care delivery system are incompatible with capitalism. Singapore has very strict requirements for anyone wanting to run for Prime minister. Fortunately for Singapore, Donald Trump could never qualify, even were he to become a Singaporean. Singaporeans have a low tolerance for corruption. Singapore is an Island, City State with a British and troubled past. It found its own way after ~1960 following years of British domination and relative calm, then ignominious defeat of the British at the hands of the Japanese, then brief chaos following WWII, then a failed experiment with a Malaysian partnership. It seems to have found the ideal mix of socialism, capitalism, and government regulation. Could Singapore withstand a Donald Trump and a Marjorie Taylor Green? Let's hope they are never put to the test. I have made this point many times before, so I hope you can excuse me when I act like a drunk that tells the same story over and over: No nation that issues it's own sovereign currency and has no outstanding instruments of debt denominated in another nations currency has any real debt! What confuses people no end is that when a nation, such as the U.S. or a Nation State such as Singapore, issues "bonds", the bonds duplicate characteristics of real debt from the lenders perspective. To the issuer, however, they have none of the characteristics of real debt, because the issuer can create the money needed to pay them off whenever the mood, or circumstances , strike it. Of course the issuer has constraints, but they are not the constraints of a private sector borrower.