Refinancing America

The Republican Antitax Agenda

By Sheldon D. Pollack

Subjects: Political Science
Paperback : 9780791455906, 294 pages, December 2002
Hardcover : 9780791455890, 294 pages, December 2002

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Table of contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Origins of Republican Tax Policy

2. Forever a Minority Party?

3. Reagan Changes the Course

4. The Tax Deadlock Decade

5. Tax Policy in the Twenty-first Century

6. GOP Campaign to Kill the "Death Tax"

7. The Great Corporate Tax Giveaway

8. The Politics of the Surplus

Conclusion: The Prospects for U.S. Tax Policy

Appendix 1: Charts

Appendix 2: Tables

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A highly accessible history of Republican tax policy.

Description

A fascinating account of the long history of antitax sentiments within the Republican party, Refinancing America looks at how opposition to income and wealth taxation became the dominant factor influencing the party's political agenda. The countless proposals for tax cuts introduced by Republicans in Congress during the 1990s, as well as the Bush administration's $1. 6 trillion tax cut in May 2001, were not aberrations, but rather the continuation of a long tradition of hostility to taxation. Nevertheless, the rhetoric and devotion to the antitax cause in the 1990s was more pronounced than in the past, and this book explains how this more extreme strain of antitax politics came to dominate the GOP.

Sheldon D. Pollack is Associate Professor of Business Law at the University of Delaware. He is the author of The Failure of U. S. Tax Policy: Revenue and Politics.

Reviews

"Pollack combines a detailed knowledge of tax law and policy with a thorough appreciation of the broader historical dynamics of American politics and political economy. Refinancing America deals with one of the enduring domestic policy issues in American politics, and in many ways goes to the heart of the broader debate over the role of government versus the individual." -— Euel Elliott, University of Texas at Dallas

"Very reader friendly even to the tax novice, this book gives an excellent behind the scenes look at the legislative process." — Jay Soled, Rutgers University