Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Taxes on the rich are necessary

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Clinton, had a commentary piece on the Marketplace radio program heard on NPR. He reviewed post-war history, noting that high taxes on the rich corresponded with a robust economy and a well-to-do middle class. High taxes allow for more investments in infrastructure and lower taxes on the middle class. It is spending by the middle class -- not the rich -- that gets the economy humming.

It is very easy to guess the political party affiliation of each of the commenters. The only negative comment that had any resonance with me was about correlation is not causation. I'll let my friend and debate partner determine if that has any bearing. It all could be as simple as not having the space in a two minute commentary to describe the actual causation. Even if there is no causation, what we're doing now isn't working (and I could spend the day describing how it isn't working) so I'm very willing to give higher taxes on the rich a try.

Another commenter essentially said that facts have a liberal bias.

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