This one is, surprisingly, on the part of The Wall Street Journal‘s editors. In an otherwise cogent editorial with several sound points regarding former President and Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s offers of specially targeted tax cuts, the editors closed with this mistake:

Mr Trump is now proposing to narrow the base, so [tax] rates will have to be higher.

Not at all. Alternatively, and far more optimally, with a narrower tax base, spending will have to be lower. That’s universal, too. With reduced (tax) revenues for any reason, spending would need to be lower. With current government spending, in fact, even with flat revenues, spending badly wants reduction.

It seems the august editors have lost sight of the cause of our nation’s deficits and debt, the cause extant throughout our history.