[ju2tin]

Lost in the bashing of this professor who had the temerity not to want to pay higher taxes, is the fact that he had to invest lots of money to be able to earn his big salary. He probably has at least 7 years of higher education. His wife, as a medical doctor, probably has at least 8, if I understand correctly how med school and internships work. They sank a huge amount of money -- maybe close to $500,000 -- into investing in their careers, while most people in the lower income brackets have spent little, if anything, in that way. And the cost to the professor and his wife is even greater if you factor in the opportunity cost of not working high-paying jobs all those years they were in school. Call it a cool million sunk into their education and training, easily.

So it's hardly greedy of the guy to want to be able to at least pay back his wife's student loans before Obama hits him up even harder to help finance a new era of government expansion. There's a difference between revenue and profits, after all.

As for saying he shouldn't have bought a million-dollar house, that's hardly an unreasonable price for a couple with a combined annual income of roughly half that amount. As a multiple of their income, it's comparable to a couple who makes $125,000 a year buying a house worth $250,000. That doesn't sound so crazy, does it?

[alextingle]

I think you're living in la-la land. If he had $500,000 to spend on education in the first place, then he started rich and just keeps getting richer. If he'd foregone the education and invested the $500k in something else, then he'd still be rich, and (presumably) he'd still feel hard done by.

[sokoloff]

From the original article, which you may not have actually read:

"My wife has school loans of nearly $250,000 and I do too"

They made the investment in their education and future with borrowed funds, just as I (and many others) have. It's not like he broke $500K off some trust fund he was born with...