We all know we labor one third of our lives. Do we reflect on the fact that roughly one fifth of all our productive and economic lives involves taxation? Do we appreciate that the tax code is our industrial policy (shaped by corporate tax incentives)? That the code is also a moral code (the marriage penalty)? That it expresses our values and governs much of our social and spiritual lives (the charitable deduction)? That it orders and re-orders our society (the mortgage interest deduction and the trillions more in spending that it enables)? These and other themes are addressed in a statement offered today by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT), "Regarding Fundamentals in Advance of Tax Reform", a tax day rumination that brings home the many ways that taxation has a direct bearing on our lives and society. A choice quotation: "A tax can be a means for raising revenue, or a device for regulating conduct, or both." -- Justice Felix Frankfurter ... or both?