Here’s the problem: The president never defines what he means by “fair.” And this is for a simple reason: his definition is simply not recognizable to most Americans.

The tax code is 5,296 pages long and full of complicated details. We outlined a few of them in our recent column for the New York Times Magazine. So why hasn't Congress done anything to simplify the tax code? We posed the question to Alan D. Viard, a tax expert at the American Enterprise Institute. His response is below.

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With tax day around the corner, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) today releases its annual report on Americans' opinions about taxes compiled by public opinion expert Karlyn Bowman. This AEI public opinion study looks at attitudes since the first questions were asked in the mid-1930s to today.

For some months now, President Obama has increasingly been couching his rhetoric in the language of fairness. But in recent weeks, a growing number of conservative elected officials have begun contesting Obama’s claim to be the arbiter of what constitutes fairness and taking the issue of fairness head on in public policy.

Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow and Andrew Rugg is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed in this article are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or institution.

In this article, Bowman and Rugg discuss the public's opinion about...

With tax day deadline here, Congress returned to Washington Monday to vote on the "Buffett Rule," a proposal to impose a minimum 30 percent tax on people earning more than $1 million.

The proposal, which failed in the Senate, resembles the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in one way -- it was...

In recent months, electoral skirmishes and policy debates have hinged on the meaning of fairness. Defenders of free enterprise have often shied away from moral language, preferring to rely on facts, figures, or constitutional arguments to make their case. AEI president Arthur Brooks highlights free enterprise leaders who are changing, now making the moral case.