Every group spends more when its income grows.

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.

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

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.

Every group spends more when its income grows.

Once firms had to pay to pollute, they became incredibly inventive at figuring out cheaper ways to eliminate their SO2 emissions.

In almost every instance, air and water quality goals were met more cheaply and quickly when we taxed pollution than when we tried to regulate it directly.