The free-marketeers say that not only is the market more efficient than government in almost every way, it makes everyone virtuous. People become dependent on the state when it intervenes; the market promotes self-reliance and rewards hard work and discipline.

An interesting article from this weekend's New York Times that let's the wealthy share their views on why they're so rich. Other very wealthy men in the new Gilded Age talk of themselves as having a flair for business not unlike Derek Jeter's "unique talent" for baseball, as Leo J. Hindery Jr. put it. "I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career," Mr. Hindery said, "who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear."

• Senate and House Appropriations Committees begin work this week marking up Agriculture
• House Appropriations Committee will also take up Defense this week

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I never thought of it this way, but economist Dean Baker, writing in Business Week, points out that the current tax rule permitting private equity fund managers to pax taxes on performance-based fee income for services at the capital gains rate is tantamount to a special tax rate for one profession. Despite the many areas of dispute among economists, virtually all of them would agree tax rates should not vary by occupation. In other words, we don't want to see one tax rate for firefighters, a different tax rate for schoolteachers, and a third tax rate for bookkeepers...