clever

for those at the top who supposedly do the "trickling". The rest of us get the trick.

Back in the 1800s, supply-side economics was called the "horse and sparrow" theory, the belief that if you fed the horse plenty of oats, enough would pass through onto the road to feed the sparrows... John Dingall

(Today, it is called the "trickle down" theory.)

(Alas, most of us are not the horse)

horse and sparrow

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qkvp9/eli5_what_is_the_meaning_behind_the_horse_and/

It's not so much as a synonym as a criticism. The "story" is that if you feed enough oats to a horse, it's crap will contain surplus oats (oats that passed through the horse's digestive track) and the sparrow can get its oats from the horse sh_t.

The criticism of trickle down economics is two-fold. First and foremost, it illustrates that this is a rather inefficient method of delivering oats to sparrows and, second, they still have to dig through sh_t to get them.

First I've heard of the horse & sparrow theory. I've certainly pecked through a lot of, er, muck to get to my measly few oats. And the Republicans want to make the job a lot harder.

People complained about 280 characters, but you couldn't have done that with 140.