I took part in a rousing debate last night on Larry Kudlow’s show last about fairness and tax policy.

While I fear such debates generate more heat than light, the argument really breaks down very simply: if you want to make our tax system sound unfair, you do two things. First, you talk only about income taxes, ignoring payroll and other sources, and second, you talk about the share of taxes paid by each income class.

Note that last one. You don’t talk about the share of their income that families pay in taxes, a much more intuitive measure of fairness. You talk about the share of total tax receipts paid by different groups. Then you can say stuff like, “the top 1% pays for 25% of the total tax bill.”

Now, as I’ll stress in a minute, those points have little to do with fairness.

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