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Let me clarify a point about this argument. Opponents of tax increases on the rich claim that the rich already pay more than their fair share. They claim that as much as half of the working population pays no federal taxes at all and that the richest 1 percent already pays 40 percent of the federal income taxes, compared with just 21 percent of pretax household income they receive. More taxation of the rich, according to these numbers, looks punitive.

These claims are not correct, however. First, almost all workers pay federal taxes, in the form of payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare if not as federal income taxes. It is simply not correct to claim that the poor and working class escape from federal taxation. Second, the issue is not really the share of taxes paid by the rich but the level of taxation relative to income. Suppose that taxes were eliminated for everybody except the top 1 percent of households, whose taxes are reduced to just $1 per year. In this extreme (and deliberately silly) example, the rich would pay all the taxes, but we would not call their tax burden high.

To assess the burden of taxation, we should compare the taxes levied relative to income. In this regard, the income tax rates paid by the richest 1 percent have declined markedly from 1980 till now, falling from around 34.5 percent of income in 1980 to around 23.3 percent of income in 2008.31 Yes, the poorer households also received tax cuts (the average tax rate on the bottom 50 percent declined from 6.1 percent in 1980 to 2.6 percent in 2008), but against meager and stagnant incomes; the rich, on the other hand, received tax cuts against soaring incomes and ended up with a historically unprecedented share of the nation’s post-tax income.

Let me close this discussion by repeating a point that I made at the start of the book. I am not in the slightest against the accumulation of wealth, even vast wealth. I am not recommending a “class war.” There is no case for equalizing incomes through massive redistribution, and there would be a lot of grief and economic chaos if we tried. My point isn’t to bleed the rich but to call upon them to pay a decent and responsible share of the national needs. If poverty were eliminated, if all who wanted to go to college could afford to do so, if the poor lived as long as the rich, we could worry less about the responsibilities of the rich to the rest of society. We are not far away from those hallowed goals—if we invest in them. That’s the rub. We need the rich today to do their modest part to enable all of society to share in prosperity. By passing that hurdle, we would reduce the need for long-term transfers from rich to poor in the future.

The Return to Civic Responsibility

For thirty years, tax increases have been vilified and rejected at the polls. That might continue, but if so, America’s days as global leader and prosperous economy are numbered. For thirty years, almost all proposals for initiatives to upgrade the infrastructure and improve education for the poor have been crippled by inadequate budgets. Let me suggest three reasons why a new political majority might mobilize around a program of reduced deficits and increased public investment.

First, and most important, a new fiscal framework is needed to lift the United States out of its current economic crisis and its dangerously large budget deficit. Second, political support for higher taxation on the rich is stronger than it appears. Recent opinion surveys suggest a readiness of the broad public to support a rise in the tax burden on high-income households. Third, the United States may be set for a fundamental realignment of the “governing majority” on fiscal issues as a younger and more progressive generation comes to the fore of politics and as minorities (especially African Americans and Hispanics) constitute a growing proportion of the voting population.

A new governing majority will depend on two breakthroughs. The first is that voters, not big money, once again determine