we need to tax the middle class much more to finance universal social benefits (though much of that will just replace expenditures like private insurance premiums), without provoking inflation. 1/

we need to tax the very wealthy because wealth that confers political influence or leads to lifestyles detached from our political community, people who have no use or interest in our commonweal, is dangerous and should not exist. 2/

with respect to neither of these purposes is the formal accounting debt or deficit very useful or informative. 3/

it is simultaneously true that we need to tax a whole lot more and conventional fiscal math is a red herring. /fin