I also note, just as an aside, that the definition of "very rich" seems increasingly to be set at "just above the level a top-notch journalist in a two-earner couple could be expected to pull down".I agree with the sentiment, though I probably would have used "two-earner couples who live on the red line" which is insider DC talk for all the bureaucrats, lawyers, and various other sorts of governmental hangers-on and courtiers who live in NW DC, Chevy Chase and Bethesda.
However, Megan also repeats the common mistake of conflating wealth (a stock) and income (a flow). Even one of my esteemed economics colleagues (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) did this in a paper he presented at Michigan the other day. One can have a high income and not be rich (either because one spends all of it or because it is transitory) and one can (with somewhat more difficulty and/or incompetent financial helpers) be rich but not have a high income. For example, a retired person on a modest pension who owns a nice home could be in this category, as could some farmers.
It seems to me that this is not an innocent mistake. If you say "tax the rich" people think of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet or maybe a pro athlete or pop star. If you say, "tax high earning professional people" then people might thing of, well, people a lot like themselves. And that, I suspect, would make raising the top rate a much tougher sell politically.
Aren't journalists supposed to be good at the whole using-the-words-correctly thing?
Hat tip (on the McArdle post): instapundit
