> Thomas Sowell makes a good argument that the government does a terrible job at redistributing wealth to lift the poor, based on their track record. And so taxing the rich more doesnt actually solve that problem — it just makes politicians and their friends richer.

That is the most harebrained argument I've ever heard. If politicians are "bad at taxing rich people", maybe the solution could be electing people that actually share the average citizens perspective and attempt to do this more effectively (like Sanders or Tim Walz), instead of billionaire nepo babies that spend half their career on a golf course?

I mean if I was a billionaire, making policy for billionairs, got paid by other billionairs and had working class people still elect me, I most certainly would not try to tax rich people harder, either...

> I think it’s important to note that’s partly true. It doesn’t raise prices of domestic goods and actually increases demand for domestic goods.

Increased demand for domestic goods means increased price for those. And actually increasing domestic supply affects other sectors, too, driving up costs all over the board (=> see baumol effect)-- there is no large unemployed workforce to throw at manufacturing without driving up costs in the places that worked in, before.