So argue economics professors Thomas Cooley and Lee Ohanian in this Wall Street Journal op-ed piece today.

They make the crucial point that economic expansion requires capital. Unfortunately, they write, “Our capital stock is comparatively smaller today than it was before the Great Depression. The ratio of business-sector capital to output is about 30 percent smaller today than it was in 1929.”

The egalitarian left wants desperately for people to believe that “the rich” have a bottomless well of money that they horde or waste on fancy living and that whenever the government increases taxes on them, that somehow makes everyone else better off. It’s an appeal to envy, pure and simple. As Obama’s surly press conference yesterday revealed, he’s very displeased that the envy card doesn’t have the political power it once did. The Democrats played it incessantly during the mid-term election but most of the voters ignored it.

Increased capital investment won’t come from the poor and only somewhat from the middle class. The demand of the “professional left” that taxes must be raised on “the wealthiest Americans” is lousy, short-sighted economic policy, reducing investment when that’s what we need the most.