PJ Vogt

Has it been a good thing?

Honestly, the answer will surprise you.

It'll surprise you after these ads.

Welcome back to the show.

So here's something I think about sometimes.

When there's an unsolved problem in American life, whether it's immigration policy, whether it's taxes, sometimes the problem benefits from more attention accruing to it.

But just as often, the heat of public attention can actually make things worse.

The politicians begin to politic, sober voices leave the field.

I'm describing a thing that I don't think I need to describe because you live here too.

Jesse cared about tax policy before it was, and I use this term very loosely, cool.

Or as nerds would put it, before it was more highly salient.

One feature of that newfound salience is Trump's fund.

Another though is lots more conversation and policy ideas aimed at changing American tax policy.

Jesse is famously not an optimist, not an optimist, just a grouch who works all day trying to make an impossible world better.

But I wanted to know what Jesse sees when he looks out now at the current landscape of American tax policy.

But do you feel like—like, I've just been surprised.

I feel conflicted.

about how to think about what's happening right now in America, where I feel like when I look at the conversations around taxes, I see attempts to tax the wealthy more competently, which they seem to evade very easily.

And I see a general feeling where the reaction almost seems to be like, well, just like, rather than

the wealthy should pay more, billionaires should pay more.