We were visiting friends at a lakeside cabin in Michigan, four of us seated around a table near the water on hard steel chairs. Mary had two cushions under her tush and I had none. I asked her whether she could share one of her cushions, and she readily consented. As she sat back down, she exclaimed, “Wow, it’s amazing how much difference one cushion makes!” I replied, “Yes it is!” *** Look, I come here not to wag my finger at the basics of capitalism. I’m all in on the profit motive, the spirit of competition, and the value…
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Let’s start with this: the progressive income tax is “socialist,” pure and simple. It allows the government to take more— far more, barring sleazy or outright illegal accounting practices—from the wealthy than it does the lower classes. That’s the baseline truth, the distilled fact about the matter. One can argue from there about its benefits or folly, but not about the equation itself: Progressive Income Tax = Socialism. Ben Carson said as much in a 2015 Republican presidential debate, and it was one of the few things he uttered throughout the campaign that actually made sense. (Although his full statement on the…