The District Council voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday against a tax break for tech entrepreneurs — a special capital gains rate of 3 percent for selected tech investments. Mayor Vincent Gray had supported the measure because Virginia, which has a special 0 percent capital gains tax rate for certain technology investments, is poaching business investment and taking jobs that might come to the District if not for its 8.95 percent rate.

Gray’s rationale for supporting the provision is sound. But whatever his intentions, and regardless of the council’s motives for scrapping the proposal, this is not the way to write tax policy. We stand for lower taxes in principle, but there’s no reason the District’s government should privilege one form of legitimate business investment over another. The problem in D.C. is not that some specific part of the economy is overtaxed, but that they all are.