“The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America,” Michael J. Graetz, Columbia and Yale Law Schools

AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY EXCHANGE (APEX) EVENT

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.

Please join us for lunch and stimulating conversation as Michael Graetz discusses how the antitax movement came to dominate and distort politics, and how it impedes rational budgeting, equality, and opportunities in American life today.

Michael J. Graetz, Professor Emeritus at Columbia Law School and Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer at Yale Law School, is a leading expert on national and international tax law. His most recent book, The Power to Destroy — How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America, was published by Princeton University Press. Other recent scholarship, including his book The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It (with Ian Shapiro, Harvard University Press, 2020) has focused on issues of economic inequality and insecurity, and his previous book The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right (with Linda Greenhouse) was published by Simon and Schuster in 2017. Graetz has written a number of books on federal domestic and international taxation, including a leading law school text, in addition to books on energy policy and social insurance along with about 100 articles on a wide range of domestic and international taxation, health policy, and social insurance issues.

Open to the Yale community.