In the Arts Section of today's NY Times, Michael Kimmelman gets to have a lot of fun as he traces his "free lunches" for New York City. These are new policies he would adopt that would improve NYC's quality of life and make it a more equitable city. While I agree with several of his points about streamlining regulation and reducing red tape, note that he never mentions public finance of how he would pay for the new expenditures he advocates. Lurking in the background (and unstated) is "tax the rich".
It appears that the New York Times want to move to Europe and remold U.S cities and institutions in a similar spirit as our Western European counterparts. While there would be benefits of such a transition, would there be costs? The Times might be wise to begin to discuss the relationship between marginal tax rates and the accumulation and location of human and physical capital. Do incentives matter?