In this column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Alan Reynolds of Cato takes on the shoddy statistics the redistributionist, envy-pandering left is using to make the case for more government action to close the supposedly awful income gap. That means higher taxes, and not just on the billionaires.
I appreciate Alan’s work here (BTW, he’s the token non-redistributionist on a conference at UNC next month), but think there is another way to approach this matter. Even if it is true that the top 1% earn somewhat more than in the past, how does it make everyone else better off if Uncle Sam takes the money away from them and spends it on all the things that the politicians want to spend money on? Bill Gates does some useful things with his money whereas the politicians just squander it on pork barrel spending and all the many bureaucratic fiefdoms.
This is political gamesmanship at its ugliest. Get gullible people all riled up over a “crisis” that is nothing but a statistical artifact, then tell them that if elected, you’ll increase taxes on the rich — which means more money in the government’s coffers with which to pay off the special interest groups that count on your favors.
