Yes, it is innocent compared to the extreme "progressive" position.WiseOne wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:30 amExactly. What Krugman seems to be saying is that anyone who he defines as "rich" or that Moda would describe as "wealthy" is sufficiently morally repugnant that "the rest of us" (whoever that is) should have no qualms about relieving them of as much of their money as possible. The only question is how you can maximize the take using the current tax system. The question of why the government is more entitled to spend it (and on what) than the person earning it is of course not addressed.
This is divisive and frankly ugly stuff in my opinion. I agree with progressive taxation in the name of fairness, because flat taxes like FICA genuinely are harder on people in the lower brackets as more of their income goes toward daily necessities. I also agree that there are some things that we need government to do, and that must be paid for. That's a very innocent point of view compared to the philosophy espoused in this article.
But it still means some people using force to get money from people to spend on "government necessities".
The only truly innocent position is that there actually is NOTHING that we "need government to do", so therefore government is an unnecessary evil.
This was also HB's position, if that matters.