Holman Jenkins On The Baucus Shakedown

Holman Jenkins gives wider audience to Max Baucus's (along with co-bandito Chuck Grassley) Wall Street shakedown machine that I highlited previously. The best reason to read Holman is that he always cuts through the farsical political thicket to ask the one, seminal question on any issue. In this case it is:

"But what about the economic issue? Any tax is a disincentive, so let's just say the tax code imposes less of a disincentive than it might to what private equity does: buying, overhauling and reselling companies. Is there a public-interest reason suddenly now to use a tax-policy bludgeon to reduce the attractiveness of this business?"

Of course another good reason to read Holman is that his plucky writing style gives us fantastic formulations like "unlimbered a delicious flow of campaign dollars."