Should the rich pay higher taxes? In January, congress raised taxes on the wealthy to help cut the deficit. Some think that didn't go far enough.

• Author: Reich, Robert B.

YES The U.S. government isn't collecting enough money to pay for everything we want it to do. If the rich don't pay more, the rest of us will have to. Otherwise, we'll have to do without good schools, roads, bridges, national defense, and everything else we expect from our government.

Although Congress raised the top income tax rate to 39.6 percent as part of the fiscal cliff deal, the rich still aren't paying their fair share. Between the end of World War II and 1981, the tax rate on top incomes was never below 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Even with the latest increase, many rich people will still pay a lower overall rate because most of their income is from capital gains-increases in the value of their investments-which are taxed at a lower rate than salary income. In 2011, presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid a tax rate of about 14 percent on an income of more than $20 million. Besides, wealthy Americans can afford to pay more. The richest 1 percent now take home a larger share of the nation's total income than at any time in the past 80 years The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together.

Raising taxes on the rich would not slow the economy. The economy grew faster in the three decades after World War II--when taxes on the rich were much higher-than it has since. Nor are the rich especially good "job creators." Jobs are created when companies need more employees to handle increasing sales. But so much wealth has been going to the top that the rest of us don't have money to buy what companies could sell with more employees. Raising taxes on the rich is just common sense.

--ROBERT B. REICH

U.S. Secretary of Labor (1993-97)

NO One of the fundamental lessons of economics is that incentives matter. The higher the wages, the harder most people work. And lower taxes let people...