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Inequality & Taxing the Rich blog
The Long Argument Over Whether the War on Poverty Worked Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964, and Americans have argued about the outcome ever since. Much of the dispute turns on a ruler that never counted the help it was meant to measure. How Public Schools Are Funded and Why ZIP Codes Decide So Much A plain guide to where school money comes from: local property taxes, state formulas and a small federal share, and why a 1973 Supreme Court case left the gaps in place. How Social Security's Trust Funds Work and the Choices Ahead Where Social Security's money comes from, what the trust funds hold, what the trustees project for the 2030s, and the real menu of benefit and revenue choices Congress has to close the gap. School Vouchers From Milton Friedman to Arizona's Universal Plan The voucher idea began as one economist's thought experiment in 1955; seventy years later Arizona opened public education money to every family, and the bill came due. The Case for Lifting the Social Security Payroll Tax Cap In 2023 both parties stood in the House chamber to promise no cuts to Social Security. Here is the argument that keeping that promise means taxing high earnings the way all other wages are taxed. The Case for Reparations and the Strongest Objections to It What H.R. 40 would actually do, the strongest arguments against reparations for slavery and its aftermath stated fairly, and how supporters answer each one. The Federal School Choice Tax Credit in the 2025 Budget Law The 2025 budget law created the first federal tax credit for private school scholarships. Here is how the dollar-for-dollar credit works and why each governor's opt-in decision matters. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the 1999 Repeal Still Argued Over Roosevelt signed the law separating ordinary banking from Wall Street dealmaking in June 1933. What it did, how it was dismantled, and what its 1999 repeal did and did not have to do with 2008. The Omaha Platform of 1892 and the Reforms It Wrote for the Next Fifty Years A third party of indebted farmers met in Omaha on July 4, 1892, lost the election, and still wrote the income tax, direct election of senators and more into law. The Pecora Hearings of 1933 and the Bankers Who Testified Under Oath A Sicilian-born prosecutor questioned the most powerful bankers in America in 1933 and turned their answers into the securities laws, deposit insurance and the SEC. The Sixteenth Amendment and the Birth of the Federal Income Tax How the income tax was struck down in 1895, revived by a constitutional amendment that conservatives expected to fail, and ratified in 1913 by reformers who wanted the rich to pay. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 Was a Bipartisan Deal Worth Studying How Ronald Reagan, Bill Bradley and Dan Rostenkowski traded lower rates for closing tax shelters in 1986, why the deal worked, and how the bargain came apart in the decades after. The Tulsa Race Massacre and the Wealth That Burned on Greenwood What a white mob destroyed in Tulsa's Greenwood district in 1921, how insurers and the city refused to make it whole, and why the fight for repair has lasted more than a century. What the July 2025 Tax and Spending Law Did to Medicaid and SNAP A plain guide to the work requirements, six-month renewals, state cost shifts and benefit changes for Medicaid and SNAP in the July 4, 2025 law, and when each one is set to arrive. When the Top Tax Rate Was 91 Percent, and Who Actually Paid It The 1950s top rate of 91 percent is a favorite progressive talking point. Here is how few people paid it, what the rich really owed, and what that era can and cannot teach us now. Who Gained the Most From the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act The 2017 tax law cut the corporate rate to 21 percent for good and individual rates for eight years. Here is how its gains were divided, and the strongest case its supporters make. Who Pays to Clean Up Superfund Sites, and Why the Polluter Tax Lapsed Superfund's taxes on oil and chemical companies expired in 1995, shifting toxic cleanup costs to taxpayers for a generation. How Congress brought them back.