Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Excellent... Williamson's most important contribution is her insistence that taxes are crucial in defining notions of what it means to be a real, deserving, and politically engaged American citizen."--Joseph Thorndike, Tax Notes "A Tea Party expert draws on fascinating interviews with 49 Americans--white, black, Asian and Hispanic, urban and rural, Republican and Democrat--on their views on taxation, from form-filling to government waste to loopholes, and neatly upends the view of US citizens as reluctant taxpayers."--Karen Shook, Times Higher Education "Read My Lips is a useful corrective to the dire view of Americans as irrational and ill-informed antitax zealots. It also offers Democrats a useful insight: Maybe Republicans' perceived edge on taxation owes less to the popularity of their views than to Democrats' own failure to marshal a civic commitment to taxes for liberal ends. Having identified the problem, Williamson may be pointing the way to a solution to the ugly politics of taxation."--Josh Mound, Chronicle of Higher Education
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface: The Tax Revolt Was a Long Time Ago ix Acknowledgments xvii Introduction 1 1 Pride and Prejudice and Taxes 26 2 How the Taxpaying Experience Obscures Low-Income Taxpayers 46 3 Where Should Tax Money Go? 79 4 How the Taxpaying Experience Shapes Attitudes about Progressivity 117 5 (How) Is Tax Money Wasted? 142 Conclusion 165 Appendix A The U.S. Tax System: A Brief Introduction 183 Appendix B Meet the Interviewees 193 Notes 235 Index 277
