‘The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America’ by Michael J. Graetz

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The Power to Destroy by Michael J. Graetz

In the 1940s millionaire real estate developer William J. Levitt proclaimed that he was proud to pay high taxes for the privilege of living in “the greatest country in the world.” But since the ‘70s, many Americans have been besotted by the notion that tax cuts—especially on the rich—will somehow be to their benefit.

In The Power to Destroy, Yale and Columbia law professor emeritus Michael J. Graetz examines that drastic shift in public sentiment. Many factors were at work, including disillusionment over the Vietnam War and the dangerous rise of an individualism that has weakened social ties. Racism in the form of “I don’t want those people getting my money” was barely concealed. Free market economists such as Milton Friedman and conservative pundits such as William F. Buckley argued for low taxes and small government. The most influential figure was economist Arthur Laffer, who famously sketched out his vision on a cocktail napkin. His was a simplistic idea about low taxation tied to low government spending (on social programs) to eliminate deficits. It’s fit for a bumper sticker and the GOP rode with it. Ronald Reagan became Laffer’s leading advocate. 

So what’s wrong with low taxes? Doesn’t that allow the rich to create new jobs and allow more of their wealth to trickle down to the rest of us? The evidence doesn’t wholeheartedly support the theory. And, Graetz adds, “antitax advocates have not treated all taxes as equally important to attack” as corporations and interest groups manipulate the legislative process.

Get The Power to Destroy at Amazon here.

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