Most of Megan McArdle’s comments in her Washington Post column about the kerfuffle over the Met Gala aren’t particularly interesting but her peroration and conclusion are:
Indeed, of the roughly $1 trillion that House Democrats propose to raise from high-income individuals, comparatively little is raised by closing loopholes of any sort; most of the new revenue would come from jacking up income and capital gains tax rates on individuals who make more than $400,000 a year, and from a special surtax on people making more than $5 million annually. That would, of course, be painful for the very rich, and Ocasio-Cortez’s never-never proposal for a 70 percent rate would pain them even more — but some more than others.
Status goods are positional: As long as all the other multimillionaires have to pay the same tax, people who spend a lot of money on charity won’t see their position in the pecking order change much. It might actually improve relative to the sort of rich person who likes to buy giant yachts and whatnot. That might be desirable — most of us want to encourage charity. But it suggests that kind of rich people who go to the Met Gala were not the ones most likely to be offended by her dress.
Where the dress might fail as an embodied critique of the wealth on display at the gala, it arguably succeeds as a physical symbol of one problem with progressive politics. As critics on the left and the right have noticed, that politics often seems noticeably less effective at uprooting existing power structures than it is at securing a few of the rebels access to the corridors of power and privilege. And from the outside, they often appear to be enjoying themselves in much the same fashion as the other insiders, while covering their backs with ritual denunciations that no one takes very seriously.
That hasn’t noticed only by Ms. McArdle. The editors of the WSJ have pointed it out rather archly as well. And note how well it ties in with Ross Douthat’s observations below. It isn’t simple hypocrisy; it’s using elected office to increase your power, status, and wealth.
The editors of the Washington Post observe the same thing with an undertone of despair:
Democrats do not have the luxury of expanding a needless and expensive tax break. Even if they passed Mr. Neal’s proposal intact and held the line on loopholes, they would still struggle to pay for their bill without embracing accounting gimmicks. Mr. Neal’s plan would raise $2.9 trillion, but Democrats seek to spend $3.5 trillion — and experts say the real cost of the programs they desire would be far higher than that estimate. Democrats argue that the economic growth their bill spurs would fill the gap. This is wishful thinking.
If anything, Democrats should be reexamining some obvious pay-fors that Mr. Neal failed to propose, such as closing the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to avoid income taxes. A carbon tax would help fight climate change, and it would not impact most taxpayers if a chunk of its revenue were recycled back to the public.
