So— one thing to keep in mind is the context of the crisis Reagan was facing as he entered office. Aging factories could not keep up with surplus demand, opening the floodgates foreign products. American factories aged and went without updates because the cost of capital was too high and investors and those individuals with excess capital largely felt it was a better investment to hang on to cash rather than invest it. (The marginal tax rate for the highest earners was upwards of 70% in 1980 vs 37% from 2021. Fed funds was ~19% as Reagan entered office as well)

Reagan’s policies of “trickle down” economics worked almost too well, as it resulted in a flurry of new investment activity, resulting in the small business gains cited elsewhere, among others. Significant investment dollars ultimately and certainly unintentionally poured into microchip technologies, which distributed most of the wealth of the era into the hands of information workers, and in many ways left factory workers behind. This resulted in the significant wealth gap we see today.

So, I think it’s a bit unfair to say that trickle down was not a great policy; because at the time it did what was needed. At the same time, we can’t look to Reagan’s policies and expect a similar solution today.