https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/23/congress-inheritance-taxes-fix-wealth-inequality
This WaPo editorial is based on a set of unquestioned assumptions, beginning with its title: “Congress passed up an obvious policy tool to fix wealth inequality.” The title assumes that wealth inequality – which has been a fact of life in the United States ever since our founding and for millenia before that in most societies around the world – is inherently a problem that must be solved or fixed, rather than a built-in feature of most societies, including those like America, which are dynamic rather than extremely regimented.
So, what exactly is the problem with some people having more than others? After all, some people have more brains than others. Is that a problem? Not one that can be fixed. Some have more talent than others. Some have far more productive energy than others. Some have more beauty than others. And yes, some have more money, more stuff, more wealth than others. So what?
Different people can provide different answers to the “So what?” question. The WaPo editorial assumes that its readers already oppose or resent or are morally outraged by some people having far more money than others. And then it offers the most facile of reasons for soaking the rich: our insatiable federal government needs more money! The editorial asserts that “taxing large estates is one of the least harmful ways for the government to raise revenue; if anything, doing so incentivizes heirs to work more” – as if the WaPo editorial board gives a damn about incentivizing rich kids!
Lest we forget, that editorial board now serves the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, currently the second richest man in the world, who obviously doesn’t give a fig about “wealth inequality,” as Amazon.com runs a gazillion ads online promoting how it pays new hires all of $15 an hour!
This WaPo editorial is at war with itself. Half of it is about raising money from the wealthy in order “for the federal government to fund its operations, pay down debt and put core entitlement programs on firmer financial footing.” Okay, so that argument is that you tax the rich because they can afford to pay what the government needs in order to function.
But the other half of the editorial is not about taking rich people’s money because we need it, but because they shouldn’t have it! “Huge transfers of unearned wealth undermine the principle that economic rewards should accrue to the deserving…” Really? Some people who work hard get rich. Most people who work hard never get rich. Are they less “deserving”? Some people who buy lottery tickets get rich. Most people who buy lottery tickets never get rich. And everybody knows that. Yet our society promotes hard work, while the vast majority of states run lotteries to help fund government programs. As a society, we value work AND we value luck. Throughout our nation’s history, there have been at least two paths to wealth: some work their way to it and others get lucky – by being born to rich parents or by marrying someone wealthy or simply by serendipity.
The problem is not that some people are rich. The problem is that many people are poor, too poor to afford decent housing and health care and food, too poor to escape dangerous, unhealthy living conditions, too poor to have hope for the future. But even if our society manages to provide a pathway out of poverty for those who need it, that path will not – and need not – eliminate all wealth differentials. Jesus said, “The poor will always be among you.” In America, the rich will always be among us too.