As has been pointed out many times, the Great Compression in income distribution during the 1950s and 1960s, driven in part by policies designed quite explicitly to “stick it to the rich”, was also a time of full employment and steadily growing economic growth. And, while the success of those policies made it sensible to focus on other issues, such as civil rights, rather than seeking to push economic redistribution even further, the situation is exactly the opposite today.
When the top 1 per cent have 25 per cent of all income and this share is steadily growing, a government that doesn’t soak the rich can’t do much more than spread the pain a bit more evenly, whether this means cutting services to balance the budget without higher taxes on the bottom 99 per cent, or squeezing out a bit of extra revenue to preserve essential parts of the welfare state.
Truth and Traditions 
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