Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich made the connection America's left has been searching for on Thursday, blaming the plight of America's poor on former President George W. Bush.

In an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner on the ways Republicans are suggesting that policies like Obamacare are hurting the poor by removing an incentive to work, Reich deflected the critique and pivoted to launch one of his own.

Reich said the discussions from leading Republicans like Paul Ryan reminded him of the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush, which he called just another version of trickle down economics:

You give tax breaks to the rich and hope that the benefits trickle down to everybody else. The problem is we now know that trickle-down economics is a cruel hoax. It's cruel because nothing trickled down. In fact, the middle class and the poor are in many cases worse off because of those tax cuts that George W. Bush created. And i would say a hoax because it is, well, it simply doesn't work. We know it doesn't work.