Matt Yglesias Is a Philosophical Naif

Matthew Yglesias is a philosophical naif. He writes:

Bush: Secret Progressive | TPMCafe: Interesting to see Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg both falling for the bogus theory that the Bush tax cuts have made the tax code more progressive.... Does anyone seriously believe that Bush (accidentally?) and highly counterintuitively implemented a change to America's income distribution that runs highly contrary to the long-held goals of conservative tax policy? That this shift went unnoticed -- for years -- until it all of a sudden emerged out of the either from a variety of highly-partisan outlets? That's just silly.... Glenn and Jonah both have a weakness for the politics of resentment... they're willing to believe the world operates in totally bizarre ways and pass this sort of theory on without checking any of the relevant information....

[T]he Joint Economic Committee study that allegedly proves "Bush's tax cuts make the tax system more progressive" doesn't even purport to show that. Rather, it (misleadingly) claims that his tax cuts made the personal income tax more progressive. Bush's tax policies have also reduced the personal income tax's share of the overall tax burden in favor of the regressive FICA...

Matt writes as if Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg are trying to figure out what is going on, and then to communicate it to others in some sort of Habermasian speech situation.

They aren't.

Matt is wrong when he says that Reynolds and Goldberg "believe the world operates in totally bizarre ways." You cannot make inferences from what they write to what their beliefs are.