The price of taxing the rich? According to this Wall Street Journal article, the wealthiest segment of society has the most volatile income, so politicians who rely on taxing them to fund their social and political dream projects can wind up diving headlong into a budget nightmare. The Journal piece focuses on California in particular, but with reference to other states that have pursued similar soak-the-rich schemes. And the following statement reveals how such schemes tap a  fundamentally anti-wealth, class-envy, anti-capitalist mentality. California state senator Noreen Evans gives it to us straight from the social-political-engineering horse’s mouth:  (emphasis added).

In a blog post called “The Volatility Monster,” California Democratic State Sen. Noreen Evans wrote that “the true response to solving the volatility problem is to make sure Californians are fully employed and decently paid. Preserving the state’s progressive tax system is fundamental to combating the rising riches at the top and rising poverty at the bottom. Flattening our tax system would simply increase this already historic income inequality,” she wrote.

Combating rising riches at the top?! Really, Noreen? Leveling tax rates= ‘bad’, but leveling incomes = ‘good’, in her scenario.My guess is that there are plenty of exceptions she would permit, even to this kind of obviously egalitarian outcome.

Conclusion: Envy-mongering politicians love to use class-or even race-baiting remarks and anti-capitalist finger-pointing to distract voters from the true problem: the political addiction to taxing and over-spending. Politicians (see above) both dearly love and desperately need the conspicuously rich: someone to play villain in their tales of injustice and heroic redistribution. And what of individual liberty, property, initiative? Forget it–not nearly noble or self-sacrificing enough for this morality play. If you are rich, buddy, you are guilty.

On the other hand, as Tevye might say: “If riches are a curse, may God smite me with it, and may I never recover!”