Jeff Jacoby tries here to figure out why the progressives, who have been strangely quiet over so many Obama policies that continue Bush policies they said they loathed, are in a rage over the tax deal.

I think the key is in the phrase Jacoby quotes the progressives as using — that rich people shouldn’t keep money “they don’t really need.” Why not have a centrally-planned (i.e., dictated) society in which the government allows people to keep only as much as they “need”? Wouldn’t that be much more fair?