George had a lot of useful perspective, and Milton Friedman was wise to appreciate it. As early as 1978 and as late as an interview a month before he died, he recognized Henry George's tax on land value as the "least bad" tax. We'd be far better off if our tax policy experts knew and embraced George's analysis. (He wasn't the first to call land value tax the "least bad" tax; Lowell Harriss had made that observation in 1966, which put Friedman in good company.) If you'd like to know more about George's ideas, you might read a synopsis of "Progress and Poverty," at http://progpov.menaceofprivilege.com/notes_with_intro.pdf, or explore wealthandwant or lvtfan.

That's the big question. Every worthwhile infrastructure investment will create more in land value than the project itself costs.

So who is entitled to pocket that windfall? Should it be used to fund local services? Should it go into the pockets of the luckly landholders?

Seems to me that the wise, just and efficient way is to recycle that windfall as our common treasure -- and stop taxing wages and sales and other things which individuals and corporations create.

To the extent that individuals and corporations invest in infrastructure, we-the-people ought to be collecting the annual value of the right-of-way they use. It belongs to all of us, assuming that we honestly believe us all to have been created...