Thread by @Noahpinion

The other day, @tylercowen, @karlbykarlsmith, @MichaelRStrain and I had a round-table debate in @bopinion about the idea of very high tax rates on very high incomes.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Michael Strain argued that high tax rates on high incomes could encourage people to choose less lucrative careers - for example, becoming nurses instead of doctors.

Tyler Cowen noted that if you only tax ordinary income at high rates, rich people will shift their income to other forms (like capital gains) that aren't taxed as highly.

Karl Smith suggested that geographic inequality (concentration of income in superstar cities and on the coasts) is more important than individual inequality.

I said, poor and working-class people have been hammered by big economic shifts and shocks for over a generation now. We should use redistribution to make up for some of those losses.

Strain noted that some of the current high-tax proposals seem more about punishing rich people, in order to send a message of "we don't like people getting rich", than to actually redistribute income in a meaningful way.

Cowen opined that deregulatory solutions would be more effective at helping poor and working-class people than tax-and-spend redistribution would be.

I noted that high taxes will be necessary to fund a Green New Deal, or whatever you want to call the shift to a low-carbon economy. Ultimately, that is probably the most important use of tax money.

I also argued that Americans DO care about inequality, they DO want redistribution, and that redistribution IS coming, sooner or later.

If you don't do it in a smart way, you get the rakes-and-pitchforks way.

Anyway, check out the whole thing here! bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Looking forward to doing more of these.

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