October 23, 2014   On today's federal tax filing deadline, it
just so happens that Congress and the Administration have been
thinking of different ways to raise tax burdens on the rich.
Last week I participated in a “Tax Day” event at the Tax Policy
Center called “Should the Rich Pay Higher Taxes?”, speaking on a
panel which also included TPC’s director Donald Marron, former
CBO director and former McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin (now
president of American Action Forum), and economist rich guy (and
a member of the “Responsible Wealth” coalition) David Levine.
TPC’s Howard Gleckman moderated the event (and blogged about it
afterward, here) and at one point asked each of us “Who is
rich?”  I at first didn’t know how to answer that; “rich” is a
relative concept that depends on one’s personal “baseline,” of
course!  But then I considered the focus of the event – what the
tax burdens of “the rich” should be -- and I realized that in a
sense, all of us, collectively at least, might be considered
“rich,” in that U.