Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Read this post by law professor William Jacobson. For most people, there are multiple happy lives to be led. Each of us must pick one. I, for example, could have been a highly paid attorney. I'm sure I'd be earning well over $250,000 per year in income, instead of the $60,000 I now earn. Notice the trade-off: Practicing law gives me more money, and hence more toys, but it also costs me leisure time. Being a professor gives me leisure time (and job security), but at the cost of money and toys. It looks like a wash. But wait. Leisure is not taxed; income is. I pay very little to the federal government each year. I predict that as income taxes rise, people will trade work for leisure as a way of protesting. Will politicians learn, eventually, that they have killed the goose that lays the golden egg? Maybe they'll try to tax leisure. If they do, gun sales will go through the roof.