One of Barack Obama's opening statements at Friday's debate was that the current economic disaster is a "final verdict" on trickle down economics carried on by the Bush administration. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

A quick summary. Trickle down economics, coined "Reaganomics" in the 1980s, is the idea that by giving more money back to the rich, the benefits will "trickle down" to the lower tax brackets. Cutting taxes is the most ideal way to get the economy going again; by trickle down economics, to cut taxes more for the rich is the most ideal way to carry this out.

George W. Bush did this in 2003. He made a significant cut into the tax rates of the top brackets. Between 2003 and 2006, we saw one of our strongest economic surges. The deficit shrank faster than ever, from over $400 billion to around $120 billion. (The reason it is back up high is due to increased spending, not decreased revenue.) The number of millionaires doubled in this country over those three years. The rich's share of tax revenue actually increased. It was a textbook case of trickle down economics, and it worked famously.

The reason we are in the current crisis is bad mortgages and preferential loans being given out primarily by the government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two "companies" had no accountability, and were able to give out mortgages that no one could afford. To me, this is the opposite of trickle down, which I like to call trickle up. It is almost the idea of government as a charity or the Robin Hood complex: give more money to the lower tax brackets first, while not giving any back to (or perhaps taking more from) the wealthier taxpayers.

This is what caused the crisis. These lower-income families buying a $300,000 house on $60,000/year salaries realized that they just couldn't afford it. The market could no longer support them. And Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae started a domino effect as they collapsed, snowballing into huge corporate and banking losses.

You may be wondering how this is possible. (I mean, how many people really got these bad loans?)  You are right in the fact that this phenomenon was extremely rare throughout the country. Today, even after all hell has broken loose on Wall Street, over 95% of homeowners are making good on their mortgages. But that 5% was enough to tip the markets overboard.

Barack Obama needs to stop blaming trickle down economics. It worked fine. The current crisis is due to housing and mortgages, which have nothing to do with tax cuts. It has all to do with Democrats in Congress and at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae turning the government into a charitable organization. And this is what Barack Obama plans to do. He wants to take from the rich and give to the poor, even after this catastrophe that makes quite clear how ineffective this strategy is. The economy cannot be "built from the bottom up" in this manner; the rich pay most of the taxes, so they should get the most back. And because they have that much more money, they will dump it into the economy far sooner and to greater effect than lower income taxpayers.

Trickle up failed miserably. Trickle down worked brilliantly. And voting for Barack Obama will make this crisis look like the good old days.