Oh Those Greedy Rich and Lazy Poor

I like Elizabeth Warren. Until she lapses into the reasons for raising taxes on the rich. "A government that caters to the rich is corrupt," she says.
I like certain friends who find Elizabeth Warren appalling. I like them until they get tight-lipped and talk about "You think it's right to take money from people who worked hard enough to get rich? That's wrong!"

Taxing the rich more than the poor is not a morality issue. The rich are no more likely to be rich because of corruption than the poor are to be poor because they are lazy. It's true that some people are rich just because of their grandpa or because they know how to game the system. It is also true that some people are poor because they have no common sense or because they chose not to work when they could have.

But here is the thing: morality has nothing to do with tax and welfare policy. We tax people making $10 million a year at a higher rate because they have more money and we give aid to people making only $10,000 a year because they don't have enough. It's no more complicated than this. You don't have to make claims about how the poor are lazy or the rich are greedy or how the poor are so incredibly unfortunate in spite of their noble efforts or how the rich who are worth 10X as much put in 10X as much effort. You don't have to morally impugn or praise the folks who are in tails of the distribution of wealth and income. Their morality is no more an explanation of where they are in the distribution than is the location of folks in the middle.

But maybe politics depends on a sense of outrage at someone's greed or laziness to work.