This time it is the supposed need to make American workers who feel threatened by “globalization” less worried by raising taxes on the rich. Not just rich people who got rich by international trade with firms in Malaysia, but anyone who is “rich.” And the money thus collected? It might be used (i.e. squandered) by the government on retraining programs for workers who lose their jobs due to “globalization” — a tiny number of people who are nevertheless very useful to demagogues.
Financial writer John Tamny blasts the whole silly idea here.
My favorite line: “To raise taxes for no other reason than to reduce inequality is to implicitly endorse expropriating the property of the rich just because they’re rich.”
Tamny also points out what the redistributionists also miss — wealthy people do productive things with their money.
