"Everyone should have skin in the game"

The title of this post is the "bottom line" for Law Professor Glenn Reynolds on his post on an article in The Washington Post.  He highlights this item from the article "Five Myths About Millionaires".  Did I mention this was The Washington Post?

"In a speech on Monday, Obama said raising taxes on millionaires isn’t class warfare, but ‘math.’ His math may be off: According to the IRS, those with adjusted gross incomes of more than $1 million paid an average of 23.3 percent in federal income taxes in 2008; those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 paid 12.7 percent; and those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 8.9 percent. Half of American families don’t make enough money to pay income taxes at all.” And that’s the real problem. Everyone should have skin in the game.

One of the problems with economics is that somethings we confuse correlation with causation, which isn't the problem.  The problem is, I think, that we often don't have enough information to distinguish between the two.

That said, it suggests we should be careful about going after the rich to pay more.  We should be especially care when not everyone has skin in the game.

Regards  —  Cliff