Some multi-millionaires object to welfare on the grounds that it discourages hard work and and encourages dependency.   In the U.S capital gains and qualified dividends in the US are taxed at only 15%, and if that isn’t welfare for the rich I have never seen welfare.   The huge gulping noise you hear is the sound of the rich sucking money out of the pockets of the rest of us.  Much of this money, saved at the expense of the taxpayer, finds its way into investments  in Brazil, China, Zurich (and those centres of job-creating energy –  Jersey and various Caribbean islands), not into creating jobs in America, where demand is weak.   The idea that if you reduce taxes for the rich you get a boost to the economy may have worked once in a while before globalization, but its exponents are now living in the past.  The idea is now fraudulent, old-fashioned and damaging.

Good Epicureans, anxious for a fair and equitable world where stress and envy are at least minimized, should not support the current tax regime.