Shared Sacrifice for Reform

Today's Los Angeles Times has a piece here describing their take on the healthcare reform efforts going on in DC right now. Focusing on the financing of any reform, I completely agree with the Times that it should be funded by some sort of broad-based tax rather than a narrow tax aimed directly and solely at "the rich."

A healthy democracy is one in which everybody contributes to financing the expenditures of the government, rather than one in which certain subsets of people can vote for themselves more and more generous benefits at the expense of others. Beyond that, I won't even get into all the negative economic impacts of increasing the top marginal rates for people beyond 50%.