Years ago, an old politician gave me a lesson in why politicians vote for things that don’t seem to make much sense.  I thought of him this week. That is because some politicians want to bring in tax policies that don’t make much sense.

They want to further increase taxes on big earners. More about that later. Meanwhile, back to the old politician.

We were on a city street. Houses lined the street. On the corners stood apartment buildings.  Each contained maybe 50 apartments.

We chatted about how he voted to raise property taxes. The homeowners on the street opposed him, of course. 

 “You’re right,” he said. “But you are thinking about the owners of the twenty houses on this side of the street.”  I was.  “I’m thinking about the people who live in the two-hundred apartments in those buildings on the corners. Come next election…”

I thought of him this week because some Washington politicians are floating the idea of whacking big earners with a 3 percent surtax on high income.

We already tax them heavily. We already exempt nearly half our population from income tax. The last few years we have snuck in little increases here and there on those big earners.