I can’t really add anything to this:
You can tell the difference between a liberal and conservative by the following test: A liberal believes that changes in taxes have very little effect on production, but huge effects favorable on distribution. Folks like myself believe it’s exactly the opposite.
Very high tax rates or even small changes in taxes have very adverse effects on production, and they do very little to produce redistribution because the money gets dissipated and taken away through the political process in ways that the most ardent supporters of redistribution will not like.
Professor Richard Epstein of the New York University School of Law
PBS News Hour, “Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side?”
Aired October 26, 2011.
Hat tip: Kevin at The Smallest Minority.