Professor Saez, the Svengali of raising tax rates on the rich, argues that a tax rate of 73% on the top 1% of income earners raises the most revenues. Somehow, he must have overlooked the 1920s when the highest tax rate was cut from exactly 73% down to 25% and revenues exploded as never before.

When the recent public health crisis took shape in early March, one of the intriguing events that was postponed until the fall was a debate between Arthur Laffer and Emmanuel Saez on the issues of inequality, top income tax rates, and the possibility of a wealth tax. The debate was to have taken place at Pepperdine University in California. Saez, a proud man of the left, is one of the most prominent economists in the world—recent striking evidence being the honorary degree that Harvard University conferred upon him last year.