ROUGHING UP THE MIDDLE CLASS. “For decades there has been debate about how to help the poor without discouraging work, saving or marriage. Yet with almost no notice just such disincentives have crept up the income ladder, observes economist C. Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official and expert on the taxation of families. . . . Work isn’t the only middle-class virtue that is getting punished. The system penalizes savings, too–not just through taxes, but also through programs that reward debtors, the profligate and college families that show up at the financial aid office with empty pockets. Yet another series of tax and benefit rules penalizes marriage. ‘This is a big social experiment. We really don’t know what the long-term effect of all these incentives is going to be,’ Steuerle says.”

My prediction: You’ll get more of what you reward, and less of what you punish. But maybe the political class is okay with that. “They’ll turn us all into beggars ’cause they’re easier to please.”