Yes, life expectancy at age 65 has gone up, but overwhelmingly for the upper part of the income distribution. But this deficit, although far less justified by macroeconomic considerations, was created by tax cuts — and somehow the deficit hawks are fairly quiet. And the sheer wealth of the wealthy is what empowers them to get a lot of what they want. A 70 percent top tax rateA wealth tax on very large fortunesUniversal child careDeficit-financed spending on infrastructureYou don’t have to support any or all of these policy ideas to recognize that they are anything but crazy. So reducing the extreme concentration of income and wealth isn’t just a desirable thing on social and economic grounds.

Source: New York Times June 22, 2019 20:03 UTC