Several years ago, Amity Schlaes wrote a book on taxation entitled “The Greedy Hand,” and a piece on IHE today puts me in mind of it. The story reveals that the mayor of Pittsburgh is proposing to tax tuition collected by the ten nonprofit colleges and universities in the city.

This is ostensibly a tax on the educational institutions, but does anyone doubt that it’s going to lead to higher tuitions in the future for the students? You can’t really tax a business, even if it’s non-profit. The tax must ultimately fall on people, and I suspect that the students will bear most of it.

While the mayor is at it, how about a tax on music lessons?