In the National Archives center for legislative archives for their research. They hosted the event and provided the video. Showcasing some of the Significant Research that is being done. Todays talk is the eighth in the calendar year. We have one more in november. Well hear from charles stewart, Political Science professor at m. I. T. Long time friend and supporter of this center who well talk about his coauthored book with wendy shiller. That ought to be a good talk. I have been looking forward to hosting todays guest. Since i first saw her in action at the history conference chairing a panel that included who we heard from at the researcher talk last december and that will include karl henry, tax historian. Who is in the audience today. Thank you for attending. And well hear from karl henry soon. Molly is an associate professor of history in Washington University and received her ph. D. Degree from the university of michigan. She is the author of the highly regarded tax and spend. She will also Say Something about her current book project, which bills on tax and spend and tentatively titled as a taxpayer and citizens right obligations in modern america. We should have time for q a. Please raise your hand so we can pass the microphone and pick you up on the recording. Thank you for attending. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for inviting me down here today. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to come here about tax history. Its the heavy lift. I appreciate yall coming down to hear me talk a little bit today. I also want to thank, of course, the National Archives. Who make it possible for historians to do what we do it was sort of weird coming down here today because i made the same trip every day for about two years. While i was doing research in the reading room upstairs. Its kind of surreal to come back not as a 27yearold or 25yearold graduate student but as, you know, an employed professor of history and to make that trip again in the different circumstance felt amazing but a little bit weird. Today i briefly want to sketch out as political history on federal income tax and talk about my book as well as the ways in which the National Archives kind of helps you put together the story i tell in the book about the relationship between taxes and spending policy. Mostly in the post new deal period. So about 1936 to 1986. Tax reform law of 1986 is basically the scope of the book. I would like to offer thoughts and how and why taxes are moved to the center of american politics and americas political thought in the last 40 years. And the role of the taxes and tax politics played in sustaining the liberal order of the post world war ii period and in animated the conservative challenge. First, a little bit about myself. Oh, its right here. My interest in taxes grew out of my interest in the welfare state. I twan actually began my career in graduate school as a historian of the welfare state. I had written my undergraduate thesis on mothers pensions which were a progressive era in the Welfare Program. Provide the the basis for children the First FederalWelfare Program inaugurated in 1935 as part of the Social Security act. Even as an undergraduate it seemed historians were insufficiently attentive to the questions. That there wasnt enough attention given or thought about the taxes in talking about the welfare state. I work order the hill for two years. It might be afraid of numbers. Weve generally tried to outsource taxes and tax history to the economists, to lawyers, and sometimes to political scientists. And one of the leaders in the field was here last year has always done a great deal to bring taxes to the forefront of the study. Tax spend relies heavily on arkansas civil research. Particularly done here at the National Archives as well as in the johnson and reagan president ial libraries. In order to look at his records. Of the records in this building in the Senate Finance and ways and Means Committee is particularly important. A period in which taxes did not play a particularly visible role in the national politics. These sources also help put together a portrait of the community and tax and welfare experts who design and implement tax and welfare policy and the 2. 5 decades after world war ii. Congressional sources were important in two chapters of the book. And the ways and Means Committee. I became acquainted with two men. Senator russell was chairman of the Senate Finance committee. He was particularly active on welfare issues. He was a known opponent the program that replaced them in 1961 as well as the long time chairman of the house ways and Means Committee and really the sort of all tax policies in the 1950s. I dont know how i feel a little naked up here without my powerpoint. [ laughter ] i know. I always feel in any of you remember this. If youre in elementary school, the teachers could never get the video it play and you were like channel three. Its on channel three. Like they are. The stupidest people in the world. When you get to be a teacher, you suddenly lose your ability to use technology. Even if you do it in the cumulative every day. Thank you very much. I hope we dont have this particular issue again. And one of the main plans i make is that while taxes periodically played an Important Role in american politics, its not until the 1970 they emerged as an issue. Its often assumed americans have hated taxes and American History can be a match of the 200 plus revolt against taxes. The taxes became a political issue a part of the political issue. And it requires any and all new tax cuts are spending increases. Today i would like to take a brief tour through the history of the federal income tax. Again offers a few thoughts as to how and why taxes have now become central of american politics. The United States experimented with a variety tiff tax systems. The american constitution allows the federal government to collect tax duties to provide the common sense and general welfare of the United States. And at the same time, however, section ix of article i limited the tax except in portions consensus. This limitation on the federal governments taxes. Protect the particular slave holders many of whom helped they feared the nonslave holding majority would one day use it to abolish slavery. And the duties to pay for the war of the union imposed the nations first income tax. Which tax incomes over 800. S it was short lived and it allows them to conspire. Tariffs again for the national finance. And they can support the tariff based finance and propel a Popular Movement in favor of the progressive income tax. The progressive income tax was first introduced by the peoples party. That platform to restore the government of the republic to the hands of the people with which this tax survived one year. In 1895 the Supreme Court found the tax to be unconstitutional. And despite dourtds ruling, however, it remained a popular mols thanks to rising concerns about the economic and political power in the hands of a small fleet. Both the g. O. P. And the Democratic Party supported some form of tax. Congress the and the house approved a constitutional amendment giving and the 16th amendment was eventually approved by the states. In response to world war i but it affected about 15 and it did not survive. As well as the new payroll taxes. Having been in advance but it became effective again in 1933 and generated huge amounts of revenue for the federal government. In 1936, for example, federal liquor taxes raised 1. 5 billion. Until the Second World War. Planning for a war tax begins as early as 1959 and pearl harbor increased between 18939 and 1945 a number of taxpayers grew 3. 9 million or 2. 6 million. Over that same period, income Tax Collections grew. Has the examples here the federal government explicitly linked it to wartime the campaign to convince americans to pay their taxes enlisted the help of such pop cultural luminaries. Roy rogers, and even donald duck who starred in two short films. Donald duck is an actor. It explains his relationship. And he claims them as dependence on the tax form. Tlabl just his nephews. These campaign in general, right, toentd extroll the vir chus of the taxpayer. They indicate they felt it was fair and it was helpful. The gop did try to use tax politics to recapture congress as well as the white house. Party leaders hope to use tax politics to appeal to the members of the middle class. They felt did not directly benefit them. Despite claims the tax taxpayers. But rar organize business groups to roll back what they viewed as onnerous and unfair and corporate taxation. The role is immediate. Its particularly clear in surprisingly successful though ultimately failed to amend the constitution to cap the top rate at 25 . Supporters of the tax limitation amendment claim its respondent spontaneous. Its paid for by some of the nations largest corporations including the melon interests, the dupont standard oil, tax oil. They exceeded in redefining american citizens as taxpayers. A practice politicians followed ever since. We can see it in talking about in the way in which liberal politicians talk about poverty in the 1960. They talk about this as a campaign to transform tax leaders. Thats not the kind of language you see. But in the process, they had apioneered much of the antitax rhetoric that comes to nominate our politics. Its important to note, however, the rhetoric didnt totally residence nalt. Voters were happy to support tax cuts. But they generally didnt demand them. Indeed for much of the early post war period, voters seemed to have little interest. One of the largest tax cuts was basically an inside the beltway. Kennedy and as advisors work closely with a group arranged hope to use corporate and individual rate cuts to expand american productive capacity at a rate that shows the world the bigger vitality. Every time i want to do kennedy accent when i read word but i try not to do Public Interest it was according to one Kennedy Administration insider they had to convince them to do more. Did little to convince them. So the big question is what changes . What changes. Particularly between 1964 and 1969 whether taxpayers inundated them for demands of tax reduction. By 1968 ichb flags was rising. Productivity was and employment was ticking up. All of these trends worsen. Disgruntled taxpayers across the country found a new organization to protect their rights as their interest. These new grassroots taxpayer groups was clearly inspired by the movement. And many of these taxpayers were organize by civil rights and welfare rights of the 1960s. Congressional reform, too had an Important Role to play. The committees roll had augmented the power of small group and shielded tax policy. And taxing america does a great job of talking about this in American History. And its combination opened the door if increased Public Participation in tax policy. And the politicalzation of tax policy was the collapse of the democratic coalition. Huh Bert Humphreys liberalism. After that defeat, activists and strategists on the left and the right sought out ways to construct a political my viable alternative to what historians called while leading democrats look for ways to reinvent the party and offer coherent post parade society. Tax politics held out hope for both the left and the right. As you can see from the chart, tax payment is increasingly important to both. Between 1960 and 1980. Going up the republican platform here to over 144 times. You can see a general increase. And for democrats, liberals, and progressives tax politics offered a way for the party to appeal to the economic interest of the without abandoning the partys new liberalism. Tax politics may hoped refused to gather the base economic interests of the black and white working middle class by tomenting against those people,n illegitimate amount of wealth and power. The first inkling of a national rather than state and local revolt against taxes came in early 1969 when officials in the outgoing Johnson Administration published a list of some 200 tax millionaires who would use loopholes in the tax code to reduce or eliminate their tax bills. The treasury already sensitive to the amount of taxes they were baying thanks to the 10 surcharge passed to offset the cost of the war in vietnam the year before. A frustrated all of this hit the fan when nixon was in the white house, with letters demanding that taxes to the rich be eliminated. This campaign was remarkably effective. By the end of 1969 Congress Approved a significant tax reform package despite nixons repeated veto threats. This victory provided democratic liberals with an unexpected victory in an otherwise grim political season. Looking to the future democratic strategists hoped the tax fairness might provide a way to win back the loyalties of white working and middle classes. Capitol hill democrats heralded the bill as a triumph for the middle american, the men and women trying to meet the payment on a home and rear of family and children and too long had been taking it on the chin. The passage of this 1969 law did not quiet taxpayer anger. To the contear. The Year Long Campaign for tax reform enlarged the scope by bringing attention to newly formed tax organizations to the issue of fairness in the federal tax code. These initial groups usually focused on local property taxes. And after 1969 new attention was given to the federal tax code and the income tax. Tax groups continued to attract new members in the early 1970s. According to some reports by 1971 more than 2 million taxpayers joined some 2,300 local tax organizations. These tax protesters defied easy political categorization. A sum seemed to embody the popular image of the white backlash, white, working and middle class homeowners who blamed lib call social policies. Others defied the store owe type. In arkansas, california and massachusetts, veterans of the welfare rights and civil rights movements used their organizational expertise to mobilize low income taxpayers and to direct public attention to corporate and wealthy tax avoiders. This agenda became even more central to the dreams of democratic reconstruction in the wake of liberal George Mcgoverns defeat in 19 2. Fred harris lost his job in the election of 1972, an oklahoma liberal, announced plans to lead a taxpayer revolt aimed at reforming americas tax laws, getting the rich off welfare. The group called the new populist action planned a national tax action day for april 16th, 1973, the filing deadline for federal taxes. The groups public presentation, as you can see here, deliberately avoided most of the eras divisive cultural politics in favor of an economic populism, a raid against the tax privileges of the rich. National publicity for national tax action day, a full page ad taken out in the New York Times featured a white middleaged woman named karen miller who worked outside the home, not out of any feminist conviction but rather because of the familys struggle to pay the bills. Harris was not alone among liberal strategists to look to tax fairness to give new life to a progressive majority. In 1974 noted welfare reform leader george wiley founded a new organization known as the movement for Economic Justice. Progressives, wiley insisted, must use the tax code as a grassroots organizing tool as well as a means to bring together the silent majority and poor and minorities around basic Economic Security issues. Inequality in the tax code, wiley suggested, affected, quote, people of all interests and backgrounds. A movement that aimed to challenge and remove these inequalities would bring together the elderly, black vietnam veterans, hospital workers, household employees, women, tenants, farm workers, welfare recipients, mine workers, day care parents, unemployed workers, blacks, puerto rico ans and white ethnics. Inverted common conservative critiques of welfare to delegitimize subsidies for corporations and for the wealthies. That, of course, is whats happening here in this flier distributed by movement for Economic Justice, which i found in the records of the Wisconsin Historical society, theyve got a great collection on social justice movements. This image mobilizes the image of the welfare queen, including the fancy car, the clothing and the cigarette. But it turns that image against the dodge family, henrietta dodge. Wileys organization concentrated on the grassroots, organizational tools that could be used to address local needs. The movement for Economic Justice also focused on helping out local taxpayers or local tax groups to help their constituents directly. By setting up these tax clinics. And the idea behind these tax clinics was to offer taxpayers real help as a way of getting them interested in and invested in tax reform. The movement helped local activists set up free tax clinics across the country. They helped people prepare their income tax returns but also aimed to demonstrate how individuals tax problems were actually symptomatic of an unjust system. So here is a real good example of, you know, that axiom of feminist or 70s politics, the personal is political. The group also worked closely with state and local organizations to plan what they called local tax happenings, directed against corporations who avoided their taxes. And to provide local groups with information about how the injustices in the current tax system, asbestosis injustices in the current tax system, how to get a free tax clinic started and how to get involved in legislative battles over tax reform. The movement for Economic Justice and other progressive tax organizations, including ralph naders Tax Reform Research Group devoted much of their time to setting up trained local teams to mobilize quickly and efficiently to put maximum pressure on key senators or congressmen. Despite the high hopes and initial successes, however, progressive efforts to channel and control taxpayer anger proved futile. The continued deterioration of the National Economy made it difficult if not impossible for progressives to use tax politics to underwrite a new progressive majority. Inflation pushed many middle and lower income taxpayers into higher marginal tax brackets. This then transformed earlier calls for tax reform into strident demands for tax reduction. Moreover as it turned out tax reform itself was a double edged sword. Progressives were eager to point out the loopholes in the code that benefitted wealthy taxpayers as well as corporations but they are less eager to point out the loopholes in the code that provided material assistance to members of the silent majority, tax breaks for home ownership, for ememployer provided health care, for starting a business, and even in some cases for getting married. These forums to special tax incentives were a feature of the tax code. It provided the federal government with revenue and it was an active force in promoting or discouraging certain behaviors for the use of tax deductions, credits and special rates. Formerly known as tax expenditures, to direct expenditures, these provisions in the code were within increasingly important part of the american Economic Security system, particularly for members of the middle class but although many middle and working class taxpayers benefitted from these kind of preferences few saw themselves as recipients of any kind of federal largess. This was not an accident. Policymakers preferred the tax expenditures to direct expenditures, they were easier to get passed, get them through the ways and means finance committees but also because they fit more easily with american policymakers long standing preference, for policies that privilege the market and minimized direct government spending. The result of this slight of hand was that beneficiaries of this tax spending were far more likely to see themselves as victims of the tax code, that is beneficiaries of the tax and spend liberal state. Policymakers were so successful in building what one political scientist has called the quote hidden welfare state that most beneficiaries dont even know that it exists. In the end it was the right that won the tax revolt. Responding to the reintroduction of tax politics during the 1972 democratic primary. A gop strategist developed and deployed a persuasive political story that blamed tax burdens on irresponsible and wasteful democratic spending programs. By the end of the 1970 conservatives successfully appropriated liberal tax on the rigged tax code and turned them against the National State itself and here we have just a couple of examples from the archives. This might be of interest to you. Insofar as as it is notes from a meeting with president nixon, john took cope owes notes and theyre talking about the vat, taking it off the table, they dont want to be seen as advocating any kind of a tax increase. Pat buchanan, not surprisingly, was particularly forward in advocating the politicize ation of tax politics in the 1970s and a political rhetoric which pitted the interest of taxpayers against those of tax feeders, namely welfare recipients by the early 1970s had become a despised and racialized group. The politics of taxation in the early 1970s takes on a racial dynamic that is sort of reenforced in this kind of a discourse. This punitive competition between taxpayers and tax eaters on the rolls has animated conservative politics for decades. And it even spawned a novelty board game. And heres sort of an aside. And a good example of the serendipity of historical research. I didnt go looking for this game. I did not know that this game existed but the year i was hired, another member of my department, a noted pack rat named Jefferson Davis flech iii gives you a sense of how old he is was retiring. And, you know, hed had generations of students give him things. And this was one of the things that one of his students had given him, sort of a parting gift, i suppose, in 1980. He found this game while he was cleaning out his office and he gave it to me. I introduced in 1980 public assistance why work for a living when you can play this great welfare game translated the rage, alienation and frustration of the silent majority into a board game. Modeled after monopoly, the rules the games were pretty simple. Players rolled a set of dice and moved accordingly along one of two tracks, the able bodied welfare recipients promenade on the one hand and the working persons right on the other. The belief that the federal government exploited hard working taxpayers like themselves, the rules made it almost impossible for a working person to win. And you probably cant see, you know, what all of these squares say. But theyre basically what you would imagine. A game like this would say, you know, so on the able bodied welfare recipients promenade you can go to the track. You can go to a prostitute. You can have illegitimate children. Have illegitimate square is one that comes up a lot and you get money every time you have illegitimate children. Equally important, i think, the structure of the game insisted on a kind of zero sum competition between tax eaters and taxpayers. Not only did welfare recipients and workers travel along different paths its rules made clear that workers tax burdens were caused by the bad behavior of both welfare recipients and their government enablers. Any time a player on the welfare promenade landed on a have an illegitimate child square each playing in the working persons rut had to pay that player 50 out of his or her own pocket. And at the end, right, if the if youre on the working persons rut and you end up with money its then taxed away, i think at about 40 . Its basically impossible to win if you get stuck on the working persons rut here. Here are just some examples of the kinds of things, the kinds of situations that might come up over the course of your play in the welfare game. So working persons burden, youre up for a high paying promotion but a government affirmative action rules require that a buddhist female be promoted over you. Lose 500. Welfare benefit, congratulations, you are a very young grandparent, your eldest illegitimate child as an illegitimate child of her own. Benefit when you reach the first of the month. These are not extreme examples of the kind of situations that you come across when and if you get to play the welfare game. And whats sort of interesting is that i think this game wasnt really an outlier. It captured and represented a kind of conventional wisdom about the relationship between taxes, welfare and the liberal state. The tax revolt by 1980 had decisively turned to the right. Thats kind of where tax and spend ends. It ends with the reagan revolution. It ends with it ends with Ronald Reagans election in 1980 and talk abouts tax reform in 1986 but not much. In the epilogue i talk about stalemate, in contemporary politics over the issue of taxation. And my next project sort of grows out of parts of tax and spend, questions that came up, but i was unable to answer within the scope of the book. And it also comes at least in part, and i owe my experience on the hill, the title of the book owes to my experience on the hill, because every time anyone, you know i was a lowlevel staffer, i answered a lot of letters and i answered a lot of calls and every time anyone called for anything, it didnt matter what it was, right, they could be a sort of right wing guy calling for border security, or they could be, you know, groups of progressive nuns wanting us to close the school of the americas. And they would always preface their demands as a taxpayer and a citizen i demand that you do x. It seemed to me that was a really interesting way of phrasing your claims on the state, of phrasing your relationship to the state, right, so what is it about american politics, what is it about the American Experience that makes that taxpayer identity so salient . And is this something that is unique to the United States . Is this something that is unique to the last four decades . Thats what im looking at in my next book, i said tentatively titled as a taxpayer and a citizen. Tony morrison has recently argued that this kind of taxpayer citizenship is ultimately a cramped one because it requires you essentially to buy in. It requires you to have some skin in the game in some ways. She was quoted in a recent interview of kind of lamenting this transformation of american citizenship into an identity that was solely associated with tax paying citizenship. And i think, you know, theres something to be said for this. But my Research Agenda kind of looks at the ways in which the taxpayer identity has been used to push back against a sort of cramped definition of citizenship. Looks at the ways in which sometimes marginalized groups are able to claim their taxpayer identity in order to push open the boundaries of american citizenship. So this book will focus on how various groups, including women, africanamericans, property owners, pacifists, antiwar activists, immigrants and antiimmigration act viss, the poor, gay men and women have used political and legal identities as taxpayers to affect policy changes, to expand or defend existing definitions of citizenship. Although the defense of taxpayers rights is almost always associated in contemporary america with the political right. Historically progressives as well as conservatives have been able to mobilize this kind of a language. Like tax and spend as a taxpayer and citizen sees taxes and tax politics as the key to understanding 20th century American History on policymakers and agenda settings in the post new deal period this new project will include grassroots mobilization as well as national law as well as national lawmakers, and well look at political as well as legal defenses of taxpayers rights and hopefully well span the entire 20th century. The first piece of this new project ive been working on, and its currently under review at the journal of womens history is on the politics and socalled marriage tax penalty which becomes a big political issue in the 1970s and looks how gender combine to play a political role in the realignment of american politics in the 1970s and id be happy to answer any questions about that in the q a but were coming up along 10 of. Ill stop there. I will thank you very much for your attention for coming out to this and, again, if you have any questions, my husband had those made for me for christmas two years ago. Its very difficult, apparently, to get knuckle dusters anywhere. There is as it turns out theyre illegal. He had to have these like, you know, my lar ones made in hong kong, via etsy. Get everything you want on etsy as long as youre willing to wait. Thank you very much for coming out. Id love to take any questions you now have, and i appreciate your attention. It also would be great to know who everybody is so i know who im talking to. Hi, that was a fantastic talk. Thank you so much. Thank you. My name is kate and i work im a historian with the Senate Historical office. Great. I have a couple questions for you. One of them is just that statistic you gave about world war ii, the number of taxpayers, how it dramatically increases. Whats the percentage there . You gave a number of like 42 million or something taxpayers. Whats the percentage of the i dont know, the working american. Right. So i think that and these are going to be kind of and carl henry you might have better numbers on this but i want to say that about 60 of americans owed some kind of federal tax in 1945 and about 75 had to file. So the connection then between the state becomes all the much closer. Even if you didnt have to pay anything you still is a to go through the motions of filling out this form. And so in terms of kind of defining or redefining the relationship between state and citizen, this is a critical moment in that redefinition. Here people are literally sort of filling out this form and sending it to the government. Seeing themselves as taxpayers for the first time. And the argument, i think, that a lot of tax scholars make is that, you know, the income tax feels like a tax in ways that consumption taxes dont always feel like taxes. They increase tax consciousness. So a lot of people, there was a poll taken in 1939, even though a lot of people were paying taxes on liquor, basically, they didnt think of themselves as taxpayers. But after 1945 they do think of themselves more often as taxpayers. May i ask one more quick one . I wanted this image of the welfare queen. I love this, like redefine it, its a person who is wealthy and also benefiting from these types of breaks. Its interesting, too, the gender component of this, why a woman, why is it always a woman . So is that anything that you unpack in this book or you plan to look at any further . Yeah, i mean, it is one of the things that i i dont deal with gender a lot in the book. But obviously the politics of welfare are a deeply gendered politics. And the politics of taxation, too, are gendered, although in a different way. I think the taxpayers have traditionally thats been a sort of male prerogative, right, but clearly what theyre doing here is translating this gendered image of a welfare queen, women traditionally have been assumed to be naturally dependent. And what was interesting about the creation of the welfare queen is that she was unnaturally dependent. She wasnt dependent on the right thing. Youre supposed to be dependent on your husband. Youre supposed to be dependent on your father. Youre not supposed to be dependent on the man, the government. You have a transformation of the meaning of that dependency thats deeply raced, deeply ly massage nis. And mobilizing that same image against white women, essentially. Its an interesting image. Youre right. I mean, theres a lot there to unpack. Hi, im chris will helm and i remember you when you were a researcher. Oh, wow. Welcome back. We have a number of researchers that contact us who try to they request documents that will prove that wherever they live in idaho is not part of the United States of america. So they dont have to pay taxes. But i think its less that they dont want to pay the tax, but its that they hate the government and are trying to show that they are not subject to the governments authority. Is this something fairly new, or has it always been part of tax protesting . Thats always been part of tax protesting. And robin book, american tax acquisition and american slavery argues this comes out of the early republic, and out of slave holderss fears of nonslave holding majorities taxing the institution out of existence. They manage to wrap this agenda, to protect slavery, up in the language of freedom. But this is something that is sort of honed and perfected in the earliest years of the republic. If you look at other examples of tax protests, a great new book called american tax, tax resisters, Something Like that, sort of traces tax resistance over the course of the 19th and 20th century. They use this same kind of language. So idaho is not a part of the United States . Good to know. Amanda from the National History center, american historical association. Molly, i was intrigued, you said that during world war ii with the 1942 income tax law, income tax went from being a class phenomenon to a mass phenomenon. Similarly in world war i, philanthropy went from being more of an elite phenomenon to a mass phenomenon, thats the argument that zunes and julia irwin make with their books about world war i era philanthropy. That was wrapped up with the war effort. I was curious if you have any sense if theres a connection between plhilanthropy helped tun ordinary americans into people who were helping to fund sort of intentionally helping to Fund Government priorities. Any kind of connection to the philanthropic experience on the tax experience. I do not know. Thats a really good question but its not something that i have encountered or thought about. Its not something that ive read about in the literature on, you know, world war ii and the creation of the mass class a mass tax system. I dont think its ever come up in anything that ive read. Thats an interesting way of thinking about it, this notion of a kind of not a fiscal citizenship so much, but a sort of social responsibility that has an economic component to it, proceeds, right, the Second World War and the creation of the mass tax system. No, i dont know anything about it but its an interesting thing to think about. Thanks. Good to see you. You too. We went to grad school together. David linter with the joint committee on taxation. I was wondering whether any of your work to date, or any of your work on your new project will have a comparative element, and i work on International Taxation. I take one strand of your book is that progressive the progressive tax movement sort of died by the 1980s. If we come forward to today, and we look in europe, for instance, theres it seems to be much more of a Civil Society movement about taxation. So we read stories here about big u. S. Multinational companies not paying much tax, and maybe some people get upset about that but it doesnt seem to me to be as big a grassroots phenomenon as it is in europe. I wonder if youve sort of looked comparatively, historically. Yeah, i mean, i think, that in terms of making this argument about this relationship between tax paying and citizenship being something that is uniquely american, you need to make those sorts of international comparisons. And ive started to do a little bit of that in this piece on the marriage tax penalty, just basically using the research of others, comparing the ways in which the United States tax families or taxes, married couples, the taxable unit and the ways in which other oecd countries do. I think theres been a turn in International Taxation against family taxation, and towards individual taxation, in part to encourage women, particularly in high unemployment places, to go back into the workforce. And thats different than in the United States. But certainly i think that an International Component will help make sense of all of this. Is this just the way that people think about taxes or is this something peculiarly american, im not far enough to figure out where that comes from. I think we have time for one more question. And carl henry raised his hand and hes just the man to segue into this topic. Carl henry, independent scholar. Im just wondering, in terms of what happened in the 1960s, another thing might also be that the republicans under eisenhower were told you cannot cut taxes because thats going to increase the deficits. By the 1980s whats different is the the americans actually believe that cutting taxes will lead to balanced budget. Yeah. But im wondering, its johnson who first really pushed that. Yeah. And kennedy too, the rationale behind the 19631964 tax cut is that we need to cut these taxes in order to grow the economy. So they make this very explicit argument that cutting taxes now will actually increase federal revenues. Now, its not exactly supply side, because these are demand side cuts, mostly. Theyre cuts geared towards the middle and working classes. Theres a Huge Investment tax cut that comes in 1962 thats the predecessor of this major income tax reduction. But yeah, theyre using that argument, and actually if you look at the records from 1978 and 1979 when jack kemp is pushing this the kemp roth, the 30 30 30 tax cut, supply side tax cut, he calls it basically a continuation of the kennedy tax cut. Never calls it the johnson tax cut because he doesnt want to get associated with the Johnson Administration. But he calls it he calls it the kennedy tax cut, says im just doing what the other jack did, what the other jack kay did and were sort of bringing this up into the 1970s. But i think youre right, one of the things that happens too is that fiscal conservatives comes to mean something very different by the end of the 1970s than what it did in the 1950s. If you actually look at the debates over the 1964 cut its the republicans that are saying no, no, no you cant do this because we cant afford it. Wed love to cut taxes but look at all the stuff you want us to pay for. We cant cut taxes now and of course with the introduction of the curve, the collapse of the kansian consensus, the introduction of supply side economics, politicians figured out a way around, not really, but a way around that potential rhetorical obstacle. And i do talk about that in the book. And had book is here. We have a few copies, dennis braden, who is the book acquisition person in the gift shop was not able to be here today. But he got them directly at a discounted rate and then he made another discount. And so this is a highly discounted book, doubly discounted, but extraordinary, eye opening book. You really should read the book to get molly goes into this deeply about the anomaly of how americans hate taxes but they love all the things taxes give them. And they dont quite get that, for all the reasons you lay out in here. Its a wonderful book and this was a wonderful presentation. Fantastic, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for coming, guys. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, a look back at a union prisoner of war camp during the u. S. Civil war in elmira, new york where confederatepows died. The unions most infamous p. O. W. Camp of the civil war, the conditions of the prison and some of the officers in charge, starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Enjoy American History tv. This week, and every weekend on cspan3. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend