The Truth About Class Warfare

I have been tempted to come out of hibernation by this morning's column by Ross Douthat in the NY Times.  Ross rightly notes that the constant flow of money from the middle class is not mostly going down the income ladder, but rather up.  Headed towards those who take all the outrageous "risks" that leave many very, very wealthy under the shade of protections and benefits they are very careful to see embedded in our laws.  The cost, of course, is paid by those who play by the rules, the vast middle class from which most government income originates.

Key quote:

The left-wing instinct, when faced with high-rolling irresponsibility, is usually to call for tax increases on the rich. But the problem, here and elsewhere, isn’t exactly that we tax high rollers’ incomes too lightly. It’s that we subsidize their irresponsibility too heavily — underwriting their bad bets and bailing out their follies. The class warfare we need is a conservative class warfare, which would force the million-dollar defaulters to pay their own way from here on out.