More Redistribution

Josh Barro throws in his two cents about how Republicans need to embrace redistribution.  This is a pretty good read, but it again offers scant rationale that income inequality is a bad thing.

[The problem with rising inequality is] that [the low-income earners] can't keep pace with the rising costs of health care, education and (in certain parts of the country) housing. There's also no reason to think that, whatever standard of living we start from, an economy where nearly all the improvements accrue to a small fraction of families is either politically sustainable or morally acceptable.

The first sentence isn't a criticism of inequality at all, only a criticism of low-income people not having enough income to support basic needs.  If people can't afford necessities, that's a problem, and it's solution may be redistribution, but income inequality did not cause that problem, too low income did (admittedly this is a subtle difference, but a difference none the less).

The second sentence argues that inequality is both politically unsustainable and morally unacceptable.  He may be right with regards to the former, especially if Democrats and liberals continue to demagogue and convince low income people that they're being cheated.  On the latter, however, this is tantamount to arguing that even though someone, say Steve Jobs, may have done nothing illegal or immoral to earn a lot of money, just the fact that he did so was immoral.

Is that what we are to believe?