Today I read this interview of Democratic congressman Jake Auchincloss published by the NY Times. It’s long and covers several different topics. Some of it I found interesting, but one part of it really struck me as incredible. Rep. Auchincloss suggests maybe the government should be taxing people’s attention. I had never heard of such a thing but I guess this could be the next frontier in things Democrats wish to tax. Times columnist Ezra Klein is asking the question (in bold).
You should think about attention as a collective resource, a public good. A crucial question in a democracy is the quality and quantity of attention the public can bring to civic and daily life.
One of the things that I see in what you’re saying here is that the quality of American attention has been degraded. And it’s a little bit tricky to talk about how you would try to…
