TIM CARNEY: The False Frame of Regulation vs. Inequality.

If I said turnovers were a bigger problem for the Packers last week than dropped passes, I’m not saying the Packers should have dropped more passes, but by Sargent’s logic I am. Unless, of course, you take a postulate that deregulation yields inequality and regulation yields equality.

That naive-liberal postulate is false, and I suspect many of those polled don’t share it. I think when people say the economy is rigged for the rich, they are pointing, at least in part, at things like bailouts, subsidies, and other murky advantages gained by lobbying and cronyism. I notice that while the Post didn’t give it as an option, still 5 percent said that overregulation and inequality were equally bad.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few overregulations that unfairly favor the wealthy: crackdowns on food trucks in favor of restaurants, regulations blocking people from selling home-baked goods, online gaming regulation favoring big casinos, regulations keeping women from doing hair-braiding for money, and a bunch more. If you expand the notion of “regulation” slightly to include mandates, a skewed tax code, and wealth transfers, there’s plenty of evidence that our inequality stems in part from too much — not too little — government.

Yes, but don’t expect the political class to admit that.