William J. Bennett wrote:Humorist Will Rogers referred to the theory that cutting taxes for higher earners and businesses was a "trickle-down" policy, a term that has stuck over the years. Presidential speechwriter Samuel Rosenman wrote:The philosophy that had prevailed in Washington since 1921, that the object of government was to provide prosperity for those who lived and worked at the top of the economic pyramid, in the belief that prosperity would trickle down to the bottom of the heap and benefit all. The "Merriam-Webster Dictionary" notes that the first known use of "trickle-down" as an adjective meaning "relating to or working on the principle of trickle-down theory" was in 1944 while the first known use of "trickle-down theory" was in 1954. After leaving the presidency, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson alleged "Republicans [...] simply don't know how to manage the economy. They're so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket." Although "trickle-down" is commonly mentioned in reference to income, it has been used by economist Arthur Okun to refer to the flow of the benefits of innovation, which do not accrue entirely to the "great entrepreneurs and inventors","" but trickle down to the masses. More precisely, Nobel prize economist William Nordhaus estimates that innovators are able to capture only an extremely low 2.2 percent of the total surplus from innovation. Circling back to income "trickle-down," the surplus from innovation can take the form of gains in real wages, which are spread throughout the economy, according to Nobel prize economist Paul Romer. In particular, economist William Baumol argues that "the bulk of the unprecedented and widespread rise in the developed world’s living standards since the Industrial Revolution could not have occurred without the revolution’s innovations." Speaking on the Senate floor in 1992, Senator Hank Brown (R-Colorado) said: "Mr. President, the trickle-down theory attributed to the Republican Party has never been articulated by President Reagan and has never been articulated by President Bush and has never been advocated by either one of them. One might argue whether trickle-down makes any sense or not. To attribute to people who have advocated the opposite in policies is not only inaccurate but poisons the debate on public issues." Economist Thomas Sowell has written extensively on trickle-down economics and loathes its characterization, citing that supply-side economics has never claimed to work in a "trickle-down" fashion.