The Whiny, and Undeserving, Rich

I have been meaning to blog about a lot of stuff recently, and I hope to do another post tomorrow with assorted tidbits.

For now, since the Bush tax cuts are in the news, I wanted to alert people to the controversy over a certain U. of Chicago law professor who complained on a blog about how hard it would be for him and his family (his wife is a physician) if the tax cuts for families making over $250,000 are allowed to expire.  Let's just say that he caught all kinds of flack, from Michael O'Hare, Brad DeLong, and Paul Krugman.  If you want to kill a few hours, read these blog posts (and the law professor's original one, which he took down, but which DeLong helpfully reposted) and all the comments in the blogosphere.

A lot of what the bloggers have been saying in response to Henderson (whoops--I had meant not to mention the law prof's name) is about how the mega-rich feel poor compared to the ultra-mega rich (which seems to be the point of an article that mentions the Todd Henderson affair (whoops again!) in today's New York Times).  What disturbed me a bit about the comments was the degree of anti-tax fundamentalism that lots of people seem to buy into.  So I thought it would be worth posting an article we ran in our March/April 2010 issue, The Undeserving Rich by Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly that might help some people understand the rationale of taxation.  (Maybe they forgot to read their March/April issue?) Hat-tip to Joel H. for urging me to post the article.

More very soon, including more praise for Brad DeLong, and high praise for Robert Paul Wolff, in connection with the Marty Peretz flap at Harvard.

--Chris Sturr