Speaker:
Andrea Louise Campbell
Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, MIT
Abstract: What factors explain Americans’ attitudes toward taxes, and with what implications for funding the American state, including health care? Previous research has upheld material stakes, with taxes as an exception to the usual dearth of self-interest findings in public opinion. Or scholars have emphasized partisan differences, especially in this polarized era. But earlier research has tended to focus on tax attitudes and politics only during certain moments, like the tax revolt of the 1970s or the Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s, and only on certain taxes, such as the income, estate, and property taxes. Examining a broader array of taxes over additional periods of time, I find instead that racial resentment is a powerful and consistent predictor of whites’ tax attitudes. And the tax attitudes of Black and Hispanic Americans, which are rarely examined, are much more negative than we might anticipate for groups that are otherwise more economically liberal and supportive of government spending than whites. I discuss these and other findings from my new book, Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes, including the role played by policy designs (such as tax expenditures) and the ramifications for American health care politics and policy.
