Do We Really Need To Tax The Rich?

An argument that wealth taxation is not the way to fund government spending, and that it should be a “separate fight” to tackle inequality. Kelton presents a few reasons for this, including that “it’s unhealthy to center the rich in our collective pursuit of well-being”, with her main point being that we don’t need a “balanced budget” – we need a “balanced economy” (full employment, low inflation). “We’ve got to reframe and relabel and rethink this whole notion of what it means to have the government’s budget ‘not in balance’ and how we understand the role of the government’s deficit on our side of the ledger… think of it as our collective financial surplus.” What matters ultimately is who has that surplus – so yes, taxation is needed to stop it accumulating in a few hands and manage inflation – but taxation is not needed to enable government spending. (Banks tend not to like this, because if the government can spend, they don’t get to lend).