Blogging at Tapped, Scott Lemieux comments on Paul Krugman's column($) in the New York Times today: Targeted capital gains tax cuts also provide an opportunity to see a conflict between "free market" and "pro-business" principles. A "free-marketer" would presume that the market would produce the most efficient allocation of resources between wages, capital investment, etc., and hence taxes should distort this allocation as little as possible. People who support capital gains tax cuts, conversely, are implicitly arguing that the market gives too little incentive to invest (and the solution -- how about that! -- is a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits rich people.) Exactly. Lowering tax rates for one group of payers is not pro-market. It's pro-whatever-group-gets-the-cut.