Yglesias makes the case for taxes

Matt Yglesias has two pieces, one a blog post and another an article at The American Prospect, demonstrating once again the need for higher taxes.  This post reinforces the point that Republicans do not really care about balancing the budget. Their superior messaging apparatus allows them to simultaneously be “for” balanced budgets while buying votes through unaffordable measures such as the Medicare Modernization Act or lower taxes; since LBJ, there has not been a single balanced budget under a Republican administration.

Yglesias’ article at The American Prospect finally puts the phrase “tax revolt” in a positive frame.  The “revolt” he outlines is not a revolutionary one against a repressive regime, but a progressive resistance to the previous 30 years’ gradual shredding of our social contract.  He lays out the argument in a more nuanced way than I’ve been able to make (someone pay me to write a long-form article!), so it’s well worth a read.  The key take away:

Progressive taxation is an important principle. But the idea that further changes to the tax code should exclusively target the wealthy is ultimately counterproductive. Making the case may be difficult, but refusing to try to make it amounts to conceding defeat. At the end of the day, persuading people to support a more active role for government means persuading all of them that such a government is worth paying for.