How the antitax fringe went mainstream—and now threatens America’s future The postwar United States enjoyed large, widely distributed economic rewards—and most Americans accepted that taxes were a reasonable price to pay for living in a society of shared prosperity. Then in 1978 California enacted Proposition 13, a property tax cap that Ronald Reagan hailed as a “second American Revolution,” setting off an antitax, antigovernment wave that has transformed American politics and economic policy. In The Power to Destroy, Michael Graetz tells the story of the antitax movement and how it holds America hostage—undermining the nation’s ability to meet basic needs and fix critical problems. In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that the power to tax entails “the power to destroy.” But The Power to Destroy argues that it is tax opponents who now wield this destructive power. Attacking the IRS, protecting tax loopholes, and pushing tax cuts from Reagan to Donald Trump, the antitax movement is threatening the nation’s social safety net, increasing inequality, ballooning the national debt, and sapping America’s financial strength. The book chronicles how the movement originated as a fringe enterprise promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric—and how, abetted by conservative media and Grover Norquist’s “taxpayer protection pledge,” it evolved into a mainstream political force. The important story of how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities, The Power to Destroy is essential reading for understanding American life today.

The acclaimed authors of Death by a Thousand Cuts argue that Americans care less about inequality than about their own insecurity. Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro propose realistic policies and strategies to make lives and communities more secure. This is an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what? And how do we get out of it? Many on the right call for tax cuts and deregulation. Others on the left rage against the top 1 percent and demand wholesale economic change. Voices on both sides line up against globalization: restrict trade to protect jobs. In The Wolf at the Door, two leading political analysts argue that these views are badly mistaken. Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro focus on what really worries people: not what the rich are making but rather their own insecurity and that of people close to them. Americans are concerned about losing what they have, whether jobs, status, or safe communities. They fear the wolf at the door. The solution is not protectionism or class warfare but a return to the hard work of building coalitions around realistic goals and pursuing them doggedly through the political system. This, Graetz and Shapiro explain, is how earlier reformers achieved meaningful changes, from the abolition of the slave trade to civil rights legislation. The authors make substantial recommendations for increasing jobs, improving wages, protecting families suffering from unemployment, and providing better health insurance and child care, and they guide us through the strategies needed to enact change. These are achievable reforms that would make Americans more secure. The Wolf at the Door is one of those rare books that not only diagnose our problems but also show us how we can address them.

"Deep, informed, and reeks of common sense." -Norman Ornstein "It is now beyond debate that rising inequality is not only leaving millions of Americans living on a sharp edge but also is threatening our democracy...For activists and scholars alike who are struggling to create a more equitable society, this is an essential read." -David Gergen We are in an age of crisis. That much we can agree on. But a crisis of what, exactly? And how do we get out of it? In a follow up to their influential and much debated Death by a Thousand Cuts, Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro focus on what really worries people: not what the rich are making or the government is taking from them but their own insecurity. Americans are worried about losing their jobs, their status, and the safety of their communities. They fear the wolf at the door. The solution is not protectionism or class warfare but better jobs, higher wages, greater protection for families suffering from unemployment, better health insurance, and higher quality childcare. And it turns out those goals are more achievable than you might think. The Wolf at the Door is one of those rare books that doesn't just diagnose our problems, it shows how to address them. "This is a terrific book, original, erudite, and superbly well-informed, and full of new wisdom about what might and what might not help the majority of Americans who have not shared in our growing prosperity, but are left facing the wolf at the door...Everyone interested in public policy should read this book." -Angus Deaton, Princeton University "Graetz and Shapiro wrestle with a fundamental question of our day: How do we address a system that makes too many Americans anxious that economic security is slipping out of reach? Their cogent call for sensible and achievable policies...should be read by progressives and conservatives alike." -Jacob J. Lew, former Secretary of the Treasury

In this book, the Commission of the European Communities presents the proceedings of the Workshop on Solar Central Receiver Projects, held in Varese, I taly , in June 1984. This Workshop was supported by all operators of solar tower power plants around the world and, as a result, these proceedings provide a comprehensive overview of the technology in its current state of development. The Workshop was organized by the Commission of the European Communities in the frame of the second solar energy R&D programme under the responsibility of its Di rectorate-General (X 11) for Science, Research and Development in Brussels. The meeting place, Varese, in Italy, was selected because of its neighbourhood to the Ispra Establishment of the Commission's Joint Research Centre who cooperated in the organization of the Workshop. Solar power plants of the central receiving type have two conflicting characteristics: they employ very simple and classical components but as a system they are of tremendous complexity. It was the hope for rapid progress by using available components that guided the decisions taken in the late seventies to build six large experimental plants: four in Europe, one in Japan and one in the United States. At that time, this technology enjoyed high priority in solar energy R&D around the world. Once the plants were completed, however, it became clear that the technical complexity combined with difficult meteorological conditions at most construction sites made the yields less favourable than anticipated.

In this book, the Commission of the European Communities presents the proceedings of the Workshop on Solar Central Receiver Projects, held in Varese, I taly, in June 1984. This Workshop was supported by all operators of solar tower power plants around the world and, as a result, these proceedings provide a comprehensive overview of the technology in its current state of development. The Workshop was organized by the Commission of the European Communities in the frame of the second solar energy R&D programme under the responsibility of its Di rectorate-General (X 11) for Science, Research and Development in Brussels. The meeting place, Varese, in Italy, was selected because of its neighbourhood to the Ispra Establishment of the Commission's Joint Research Centre who cooperated in the organization of the Workshop. Solar power plants of the central receiving type have two conflicting characteristics: they employ very simple and classical components but as a system they are of tremendous complexity. It was the hope for rapid progress by using available components that guided the decisions taken in the late seventies to build six large experimental plants: four in Europe, one in Japan and one in the United States. At that time, this technology enjoyed high priority in solar energy R&D around the world. Once the plants were completed, however, it became clear that the technical complexity combined with difficult meteorological conditions at most construction sites made the yields less favourable than anticipated.

This casebook on federal income taxation contains detailed text and explanatory materials. The eighth edition marks a major revision of the casebook to cover recent regulations, rulings, cases and other new developments, including the major changes made to the Internal Revenue Code by tax legislation in 2017.

This casebook on federal income taxation contains detailed text and explanatory materials. The ninth edition marks a major revision of the casebook to cover recent regulations, rulings, cases and other new developments. The new casebook provides revised discussions of tax expenditures, fringe benefits, depreciation, opportunity zones, the taxation of business income, net operating losses, and the state and local tax deduction. The ninth edition also discusses, where relevant, legislation enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This casebook on federal income taxation contains detailed text and explanatory materials. The ninth edition marks a major revision of the casebook to cover recent regulations, rulings, cases and other new developments. The new casebook provides revised discussions of tax expenditures, fringe benefits, depreciation, opportunity zones, the taxation of business income, net operating losses, and the state and local tax deduction. The ninth edition also discusses, where relevant, legislation enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the ways how tax policy can is used solve environmental problems throughout the world, using a multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary approach. Environmental taxation involves using taxes to impose a cost on environmentally harmful activities or tax subsidies to provide preferred tax treatment to more sustainable alternatives to those harmful activities. This book provides a detailed analysis of environmental taxation, with examples from around the world. As the extraction, processing and use of energy use resources is has been a major cause of environmental harm, this book explores the taxation and subsidization of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. Its analysis of the past, present, and future potential of environmental taxation will help policymakers move economies toward sustainability, as well as and informing students, academics, and citizens about tax solutions for pressing environmental issues.

Tax Law and the Environment: A Multidisciplinary and Worldwide Perspective takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the ways how tax policy can is used solve environmental problems throughout the world, using a multi-jurisdictional and multidisciplinary approach. Environmental taxation involves using taxes to impose a cost on environmentally harmful activities or tax subsidies to provide preferred tax treatment to more sustainable alternatives to those harmful activities. This book provides a detailed analysis of environmental taxation, with examples from around the world. As the extraction, processing and use of energy use resources is has been a major cause of environmental harm, this book explores the taxation and subsidization of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. Its analysis of the past, present, and future potential of environmental taxation will help policymakers move economies toward sustainability, as well as and informing students, academics, and citizens about tax solutions for pressing environmental issues.

To most Americans, the United States tax code has become a vast and confounding puzzle. In 1940, the instructions to the form 1040 were about four pages long. Today they have ballooned to more than a hundred pages, and the form itself contains more than ten schedules and twenty worksheets. The complete tax code totals about 2.8 million words-about four times the length of War and Peace. In this intriguing book, Michael Graetz maintains that our tax code has become a tangle of loopholes, paperwork, and inconsistencies-a massive social program that fails tests of simplicity and fairness. More important, our tax system has failed to keep pace with the changing economy, creating burdens and wastes of resources that weigh our nation down. Graetz offers a solution. Imagine a world in which most Americans pay no income tax at all, and those who do enjoy a far simpler tax process-all this without decreasing government revenues or removing key incentives for employer-sponsored health care plans and pensions. As Graetz adeptly and clearly describes, this world is within our grasp.

Social insurance in United States-including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the Medicare, Medicaid, and disability insurance programs that were added later -- may be the greatest triumph of American domestic policy. But true security has not been achieved. As Michael J. Graetz and Jerry L. Mashaw show in this pathbreaking book, the nation's system of social insurance is riddled with gaps, inefficiences, and inequities. Even the most popular and successful programs, Medicare and Social Security, face serious financial challenges from the coming retirement of the baby boom generation and the aging of the population.

This book challenges the notion that American social insurance must remain inadequate, unaffordable, or both. In sharp contrast to policymakers and analysts who debate only one income security program at a time, Graetz and Mashaw examine social insurance whole to assess its crucial role in providing economic security in a dynamic market economy. They recognize that, notwithstanding a proper emphasis on individual freedom and responsibility, Americans share a common fate that binds them together in a common enterprise. The authors offer us a new vision of the social insurance contract and concrete proposals to make the nation's families more secure without increasing costs.

In his 1998 State of the Union address, President Clinton challenged Americans to a public debate about how to fix the long-term financial problems of Social Security. This annual volume of the National Academy of Social Insurance provides a framework for that debate. Competing reform proposals reflect contrasting views about the nature of the Social Security problem and how to solve it. This book examines issues about privatization, national savings and economic growth, the political risks and realities in reforms, lessons from private pensions developments in the United States, and the efforts of other advanced industrial countries to adapt their old-age pensions to an aging population. It also poses philosophical arguments about collective versus individual responsibility and the implications of market risks and political risks for stable and secure retirement income policy. The contributors are Theo Angelis, Michael J. Boskin, Peter A. Diamond, John Geanakoplos, Hugh Heclo, Karen C. Holden, Howell Jackson, Olivia Mitchell, Dallas L. Salisbury, Lawrence H. Thompson, Kent Weaver, and Stephen P. Zeldes. Copublished with the National Academy of Social Insurance

Dissatisfaction with the US income tax has grown so high that attacks on it, and proposals to reform (or even abolish) it, now amount to an almost constant dull roar. How has it happened that ordinary Americans have come to regard the federal tax as unfair and tax protestors as heroes?

To cheering crowds, politicians announce plans to dismantle the "IRS as we know it" and replace it with flat taxes and consumption taxes. But if we burn our 1040 forms, will we really be better off? Michael J. Graetz, a distinguished law professor who served in the treasury in the Bush administration, cuts through the hype to tell you what tax reform proposals will really do to your wallet.