Matt Yglesias has a pleasant fantasy about investment

Inspired by Mitt Romney’s low tax rate, Matt Yglesias defends the principle of taxing investment income more indulgently than labor income. To make the argument, Yglesias spins a morality tale about two well-paid doctors, one a profligates who eats fancily and travels the globe, the other a prudent sort who builds buildings and hires people to work in them. It’s only fair, concludes our Slate pseudo-contrarian, that the prudent doc deserves a break from the tax code, since he’s doing so many other people favors. Leaving aside the fact that the profligate supports an army… Read More

Matt Yglesias is not one of those union-hating liberals, he swears!

Matt Yglesias does not like my analysis of why liberals hate teachers unions (“Why teachers unions are different”). It’s all about the taxpayers, he says—and the folks who work in charter schools. If CTU members get what they want, that’s not coming out of the pocket of “the bosses” it’s coming out of the pocket of the people who work at charter schools or the people who pay taxes in Chicago. But the CTU strike isn’t mainly about wages—it’s about education policy. The city of Chicago is spending buckets of money on… Read More