What Would Pigou Do?

N. Gregory Mankiw, the Harvard economist who chaired George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers (and has recently advised Mitt Romney), launched a Pigou Club in favor of a higher gasoline tax to combat air pollution, global warming, and road congestion. [...]the popularity of the Occupy Wall Street movement's slogan, "We are the 99 percent." During that time, despite the fact that the top marginal tax rate never dropped below 70 percent (and stood at more than 90 percent until the early 1960s), growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita averaged close to 2.5 percent a year.