He responded, "That's fine for church, but we're talking about government." A spirited discussion ensued, focused mainly on the pros and cons of raising the state's income tax.

Later, I came across an October column by Nick Coleman in the Star Tribune in which he recommended raising Minnesota's highest income tax rate back to the level it was in 1999 when a huge state budget surplus led the Legislature to reduce it. There were 172 on-line comments. The vast majority expressed outrage. The words "socialist" and "communist" were bandied about.

At this time of economic distress, the option of taxing the rich is virtually off the table. As David Paterson, the liberal governor of New York, one of the most liberal states in the country, has declared, "Raising the taxes on the rich is a last resort."

Of the 45 states facing significant budget deficits, the vast majority are following a strategy directly opposite to the one I proposed: the largest sacrifice will come from those with the least, the smallest will come from those with the most. These states' first step is to cut services, many of which affect the most vulnerable, like Medicaid.

The second step is to lay off workers. If a legislature does consider increasing revenues, it chooses taxes that fall more heavily on those in lower income brackets like tobacco taxes or general sales taxes.

Opposition to raising taxes on the rich historically is nothing new. But traditionally it has come from the rich. It is a new and to me profoundly disturbing phenomenon for the principle to be embraced by the general public.

We forget that the marginal income tax rate reached its highest level, 91 percent under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s and was still 70 percent as late as 1981. Today it is 35 percent and a few years ago Congress enacted a tax break that allowed the 25 hedge fund managers who earned over $500 million each in 2006 to be taxed at a 15 percent rate.

My luncheon companion offered two primary arguments against asking those with the most resources to pay more during hard times.

1. The rich already pay a disproportionate share of the nation's income taxes. Yes, they do. In 2003, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes, up from 19.3 percent in 1980. But in part due to the changes in the tax laws, the rich gained a far more disproportionate share of the increase in national income during that period. From 1979 to 2005, the top 1 percent, saw their after-tax income rise by an astonishing $745,000, according to the IRS. The after-tax income of the lowest 20 percent of America rose by a paltry $900.

2. Raising taxes on the rich reduces personal ambition and entrepreneurialism and ultimately economic growth. Intuitively this is hard to believe. Would someone strive less if society allowed him to get richer but more slowly? In any case, the empirical data show that our economy grew fastest in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when we had marginal tax rates two and almost three times what they are today. Indeed, as the rate has decreased, the economy has grown more slowly.

Recent data gathered by Peter Orzag, President Barack Obama's budget director, offers us another reason to raise the income tax rather than reducing spending in order to reduce a budget deficit. It is far less harmful to the state economy.

There was a time when Americans believed a steeply progressive income tax was important simply to stop the nation's wealth from becoming more concentrated. We believed that dramatic inequality in and of itself was a social menace. A few months ago the United Nations reported that the income inequality of many U.S. cities now rivals that of African cities. The story disappeared in a day.

Raising income tax rates alone will not eliminate budget deficits, although by some estimates the cumulative governmental revenue foregone because of Minnesota's 1999 tax cuts may be about equal to the current deficit. But in this time of urgent need, asking those who have benefited the most from the economic expansion of the last 30 years to shoulder a greater burden should be an important element in any deficit reduction strategy.

David Morris is vice president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance and is author of "Driving Our Way To Energy Independence." His e-mail address is dmorris@ilsr.org.