Too Little Faith in People, Tax Policy Edition

Paul Krugman responds to my post about a recent column of his.  He is correct that not all economists agree that low capital taxation is desirable; he appropriately cites Diamond and Saez, who are on the high-capital-tax side of this debate. FYI, here is another recent paper, written in part as a response to Diamond and Saez, which finds that optimal rates of capital taxation, while positive, are quite low.

But that is not really the issue. If Paul had said "reasonable economists disagree, here are the arguments, and here is why I tend to favor one side rather than the other" I would not have objected.  Instead, in his original column, he wrote as if there were no reasonable arguments for the policy pursued by the Bush administration, and he attributed the most vile motives to those who advanced the policy.

This episode illustrates a fundamental difference between Paul and me.  I try not to assume the worst in other people, just because they disagree with me.