Virtually all families in the middle of the earnings distribution aspire to send their children to a school of at least average quality. (We'd think ill of any parent whose aspirations were lower.) The rub is that the best schools tend to be located in more expensive neighborhoods.

Virtually all families in the middle of the earnings distribution aspire to send their children to a school of at least average quality. (We'd think ill of any parent whose aspirations were lower.) The rub is that the best schools tend to be located in more expensive neighborhoods.

Every group spends more when its income grows.

In the long run, greater investment would mean greater productivity and income growth.

A flat tax is roughly the same as a sales tax.

The upshot is that to send its children to a school of even average quality, a family must outbid half of other similar families who are pursuing the same goal. And that's become dramatically more expensive because of the growth in median house size, which was in turn caused by higher spending at the top.

Prescriptive regulations, such as telling electric utilities what kinds of coal to burn or what kinds of scrubbers to install on their smokestacks, were not only intrusive, they were also grossly inefficient.