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How Selfish Is Robert Rubin

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Apr 17 2007 12:00am EDT

How Selfish is Robert Rubin?

Robert Kuttner has nothing nice to say about Robert Rubin, and that makes Brad DeLong angry. I think DeLong is right, here. Kuttner does seem to be saying, in DeLong's words, that "Rubin is a devious, self-interested plutocrat" – whereas in fact Rubin is a straightforward and transparent plutocrat who raised taxes on his own class (the rich) and who also engineered economic and financial policies which made his own class even richer.

First and foremost, Rubin is a fiscal hawk, and he wanted to increase government revenues in order to balance the budget. You can do that the hard way – by raising taxes – or you can do that the really hard way, by raising taxes in such a way as to encourage growth, thereby increasing not only the tax rate that the rich pay, but also the income on which they are paying taxes. Rubin chose the second path, with great economic and fiscal success. Yes, he made a lot of money as a consequence. That's a good thing. It meant that he, and thousands like him, paid even more in taxes.

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