The Permanent Tax Revolt

Download or read book The Permanent Tax Revolt written by Isaac William Martin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-05 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax cuts are such a pervasive feature of the American political landscape that the political establishment rarely questions them. Since 2001, Congress has abolished the tax on inherited wealth and passed a major income tax cut every year, including two of the three largest income tax cuts in American history despite a long drawn-out war and massive budget deficits. The Permanent Tax Revolt traces the origins of this anti-tax campaign to the 1970s, in particular, to the influence of grassroots tax rebellions as homeowners across the United States rallied to protest their local property taxes. Isaac William Martin advances the provocative new argument that the property tax revolt was not a conservative backlash against big government, but instead a defensive movement for government protection from the market. The tax privilege that the tax rebels were defending was in fact one of the largest government social programs in the postwar era. While the movement to defend homeowners' tax breaks drew much of its inspiration—and many of its early leaders—from the progressive movement for welfare rights, politicians on both sides of the aisle quickly learned that supporting big tax cuts was good politics. In time, American political institutions and the strategic choices made by the protesters ultimately channeled the movement toward the kind of tax relief favored by the political right, with dramatic consequences for American politics today.

Download or read book Rich People's Movements written by Isaac William Martin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-02 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do protesters sometimes take to the streets to demand lower taxes on the rich? In this urgently relevant study, sociologist Isaac William Martin examines how these protesters used tactics that they learned in movements of the poor and powerless-and sometimes won big.

Download or read book Small Property Versus Big Government written by Clarence Y. H. Lo and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax reformers, take note. Clarence Lo's investigation of California's Proposition 13 and other tax reduction bills is both a tribute and a warning to people who get "mad as hell" and try to do something about being pushed around by government. Homeowners in California, faced with impossible property tax bills in the 1970s, got mad and pushed back, starting an avalanche that swept tax limitation measures into state after state. What we learn is that, although the property tax was slashed, two-thirds of the benefits went to business owners rather than homeowners. How did a crusade launched by homeowning consumers seeking tax relief end up as a pro-business, supply-side political program? To trace the transformation, Lo uses the firsthand recollections of 120 activists in the movement, going back to the 1950s. He shows how their protests were ignored, until a suburban alliance of upper-middle-class property owners and business owners took charge. It was the program of that latter group, not the plight of the moderate-income homeowner, which inspired tax revolts across the nation and shaped the economic policies of the Reagan administration. Tax reformers, take note. Clarence Lo's investigation of California's Proposition 13 and other tax reduction bills is both a tribute and a warning to people who get "mad as hell" and try to do something about being pushed around by government. Homeowners in California, faced with impossible property tax bills in the 1970s, got mad and pushed back, starting an avalanche that swept tax limitation measures into state after state. What we learn is that, although the property tax was slashed, two-thirds of the benefits went to business owners rather than homeowners. How did a crusade launched by homeowning consumers seeking tax relief end up as a pro-business, supply-side political program? To trace the transformation, Lo uses the firsthand recollections of 120 activists in the movement, going back to the 1950s. He shows how their protests were ignored, until a suburban alliance of upper-middle-class property owners and business owners took charge. It was the program of that latter group, not the plight of the moderate-income homeowner, which inspired tax revolts across the nation and shaped the economic policies of the Reagan administration.

Download or read book Global Tax Revolution written by Chris R. Edwards and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2008 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Capital explosion -- Tax cut revolution -- Flat tax club -- Mobile brains and mobile wealth -- Taxing businesses in the global economy -- The economics of tax competition -- The battle for freedom and competition -- The moral case for tax competition -- Options for U.S. policy.

Download or read book Democracy in Retreat written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVSince the end of the Cold War, the assumption among most political theorists has been that as nations develop economically, they will also become more democratic—especially if a vibrant middle class takes root. This assumption underlies the expansion of the European Union and much of American foreign policy, bolstered by such examples as South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and even to some extent Russia. Where democratization has failed or retreated, aberrant conditions take the blame: Islamism, authoritarian Chinese influence, or perhaps the rise of local autocrats./divDIV /divDIVBut what if the failures of democracy are not exceptions? In this thought-provoking study of democratization, Joshua Kurlantzick proposes that the spate of retreating democracies, one after another over the past two decades, is not just a series of exceptions. Instead, it reflects a new and disturbing trend: democracy in worldwide decline. The author investigates the state of democracy in a variety of countries, why the middle class has turned against democracy in some cases, and whether the decline in global democratization is reversible./div

Download or read book Taxpayers in Revolt written by David T. Beito and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 1989 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Sense of Dissonance written by David Stark and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What counts? In work, as in other areas of life, it is not always clear what standards we are being judged by or how our worth is being determined. This can be disorienting and disconcerting. Because of this, many organizations devote considerable resources to limiting and clarifying the logics used for evaluating worth. But as David Stark argues, firms would often be better off, especially in managing change, if they allowed multiple logics of worth and did not necessarily discourage uncertainty. In fact, in many cases multiple orders of worth are unavoidable, so organizations and firms should learn to harness the benefits of such "heterarchy" rather than seeking to purge it. Stark makes this argument with ethnographic case studies of three companies attempting to cope with rapid change: a machine-tool company in late and postcommunist Hungary, a new-media startup in New York during and after the collapse of the Internet bubble, and a Wall Street investment bank whose trading room was destroyed on 9/11. In each case, the friction of competing criteria of worth promoted an organizational reflexivity that made it easier for the company to change and deal with market uncertainty. Drawing on John Dewey's notion that "perplexing situations" provide opportunities for innovative inquiry, Stark argues that the dissonance of diverse principles can lead to discovery.