HEFFNER: I’m Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.
Are Americans proud to pay taxes?
Should they be?
That's the counterintuitive,
perhaps even counterfactual question
that my guest explores in her new Princeton
University Press book.
A fellow in governance studies at the Brookings
Institution, Vanessa Williamson is author
of "Read My Lips: Why Americans are Proud
to Pay Taxes" and coauthor of, "The Tea-Party
and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism."
As we've just concluded another tax season
and anticipate a Republican reform agenda,
it's high time for us to correct the loopholes
and systemic inequities in the tax code.
So today we explore Williamson's research.
She suggests, in spite of, or maybe because of our
roots in tax revolt, we in fact have conviction
in performing this civic duty.
And I'll ask her, specifically,
how collective ownership, even empowerment,
is crucial to a proud American taxation with
genuine representation.
WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much.
HEFFNER: Thank you Vanessa.
Isn't that the critical incentive,
ingredient, impulse, to drive a constituency
that is proud to pay taxes, ownership,
empowerment of this civic life.
WILLIAMSON: I think that's exactly right.
So in, to make people feel good about the taxes
that they pay, you really need two things.
You need a sense of community,
that there's an 'us' and you need a sense
of representation, right?
That government represents that 'us.'
And what's interesting about the American example,
is that Americans are traditionally extremely
committed to that civic obligation of tax paying.
Americans are better tax payers,
more reliable tax payers than many other countries.
Uh, and they're also, um, surprisingly committed
to the, basically the civic idea of tax paying.
If you ask them, is it an important responsibility,
a moral responsibility to pay taxes,
Americans are exceptionally likely to say yes.
HEFFNER: So they're exceptionally likely to
say yes, and there is the paradox that taxes
get a bad rap.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: From where does that paradox arise?
WILLIAMSON: Well I think there are a lot of places,
uh, that sort of influence our perception of taxes
in this country, but one thing that I think has a
really large impact on public perceptions of
taxation right now, is the tax revolt of the late 70s
and early 80s, the sort of dawn of the Reagan revolution.
And during that period, there was a lot of anger
in certain, uh, places about tax policy.
A lot of that actually had to do with rising
and falling property rates, uh, and property values.
But um, I think it's left a real misunderstanding
of American's perception of taxation more broadly.
Right, so people might have different ideas
about where the money should go.
They might be quite angry about what their
government's doing.
But the idea that part of being a good citizen
is paying your fair share is a value
that has persisted, uh, throughout this entire period.
HEFFNER: What is the evidence that you were
saying to me off camera, even conservatives,
who are viewed as questioning the authority
of taxation, believe in the virtue,
the stewardship of good citizenship around taxation.
You studied this in terms of your conversations
with taxpayers across the socio-economic bracket.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: What did you find,
from lower income people, what did you find
from mid-income people, what did you find
from the highest taxpayers...
WILLIAMSON: So the book relies both on surveys, right,
which allow you to get a representative sample
of the country and then also interviews which,
particularly on the issue of taxation,
are a really important aspect of uh,
understanding people’s knowledge of taxation, right?
One problem with surveys is you can ask a question,
people answer it, and you wonder,
what do they mean by that?
Do they even understand, especially on tax policy,
it can be very complicated,
so, I use these two methods to both get a
broad sample and then also a deep sample
of the American people.
HEFFNER: And within that deep sample,
what did you find.
WILLIAMSON: So, one thing that really struck me,
is that even people who are very angry
about government, what they thought government
was doing, and this was, by the way,
also something I saw in my previous book,
you know, visiting Tea-Party rallies and
going to Tea-Party meetings,
people who are extremely angry about they thought
the Obama Administration was doing,
nonetheless defined themselves as taxpayers,
as part of their way of expressing their right
to participate in politics.
So one thing you see, particularly among low
income Republicans, is a sense that maybe they
don't have the right to participate.
You know I was trying to ask them about their
feelings about taxation, and they would often
hesitate, and say, well, I'm not really a taxpayer,
because maybe they don't pay federal income taxes,
even though other taxes are of course,
very expensive for low income people, right?
So I think that uh-
HEFFNER: What did they mean, they didn’t really pay 

taxes?
They, they didn't view themselves as part
of the lion's share of the taxable constituency.
WILLIAMSON: So one thing that I noticed across
the income spectrums was that uh,
the federal income tax plays an enormous role
in people's minds, when they're thinking about
taxation, even though, for most Americans,
that is not the most expensive tax they pay, right?
So I'd speak to someone about,
uh, taxes, and they would tell me,
you know, especially low-income people,
how much the sales tax costs them.
You know, it was a really salient issue for low-income 

people.
And often the, you know, those are dollars
that they could really use somewhere else, right?
Um, and then a couple minutes later we'd be
talking, and they would tell me they weren't
a taxpayer, right?
And it's because this, there's this special place
in the American mind for the Federal Income Tax, right?
And if you don't make enough money to pay
Federal Income Tax, or you're retired
and don’t pay Federal Income Tax, people sort of feel 

that
maybe they’re not really paying the kind of taxes that 

count.
HEFFNER: Mathematically speaking,
what taxes do count the most.
WILLIAMSON: Oh, all, all different levels.
It changes, right?
So at a federal level, the personal income tax
is a very large amount of the money that we raise.
But at the state and local level of course,
it's sales and uh, property taxes
that fund most of, interestingly enough,
the programs people like best, right?
So at a state and local level they're paying sales
taxes and property taxes, primarily.
Some states have income taxes too.
Um, and those things pay for things like roads
and schools and the sewer system,
and healthcare at a local level.
And so it's interesting that the taxes we ignore
are the ones that go most directly to the services
that we like.
Right, so this is another challenge to the system.
HEFFNER: Where, whereas income tax goes to pay for what?
WILLIAMSON: So the income tax goes to the general
fund of the United States federal government,
which means that it goes to a lot of things
that are quite controversial, uh,
for instance, a lot of that money goes to uh,
military spending, uh, and then of course,
all of the sort of entitlement programs
that are, uh, conservatives are often angry about.
HEFFNER: Discretionary spending?
WILLIAMSON: Exactly. Yeah.
HEFFNER: The reason I ask, is,
I want to cite for our viewers a particular
passage in, in the book.
What are the ultimate destinations of these federal 

moneys?
And you write, "Americans' examples of government
waste, often imply a criticism of the quality
of political representation in the United States.
My respondents take the opportunity posed by my
questions about taxation, to criticize the powerful,
and at the same time, express their own feelings
of disenfranchisement, in particular,
their sense that the actions of government
cannot be tracked by the citizenry."
“The actions of government cannot be tracked by the 

citizenry.”
I think that's such a critical point,
because when we do file our returns,
or when we do get a receipt at the local CVS,
or Applebee's, or whatever it may be, we don't know.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: That kind of data exists in a vacuum. Does it 

not?
WILLIAMSON: Right. I mean there are certainly,
you know, think tanks, and people trying to,
you know, put together pie-charts where you can
see where the government's money goes, right?
But people don't see that uh,
on a regular basis, uh, nearly as much as maybe
they should, right?
And then, it's also important to remember
that, even if you show people the sort of overall
pie-chart in the budget, people don't have a lot
of confidence that within each of those little
chunks that it's being used well, right?
So when I was asking people,
it was interesting, when I was asking them about
government waste, I very rarely heard much about
inefficiency, which is a sort of professional
policymaker view of what waste is.
What people wanted to talk about,
was first of all, programs they dislike on principle.
So uh, military spending would be seen as wasteful,
not only because people thought it wasn't being
used well, but because maybe they didn't approve
of the actual war aims that the United States
has been involved with, right?
Uh, so first of all programs they don't like,
but also a more general critique of how government
operates, so, uh, waste includes things like,
pandering to special interests,
or a general sense that congressmen and senators
are living lives that are apart from the American
citizens, that they don't face the economic
challenges that most people face.
And that runs counter to a really strong sentiment
that our government should be made of people who live
lives like the rest of us, right?
So it was interesting for me that a question
about taxation and government spending,
it wasn't all about where the money ends up.
It was also about the process by which we
allocate that money.
HEFFNER: How can that process be improved?
On this program we try to be prescriptive in
eliciting insights from our guests that are going
to be part of solutions.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: As we do anticipate,
as I said in the intro, potential reform around
taxation, cognizant that Republicans are in power...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: What is the healthiest way to
contribute to this debate right now.
WILLIAMSON: Well I think that there are a couple
things that could happen that would make a really
big difference.
One uh, policy I'm a huge proponent of is,
letting, giving people the opportunity,
when they file their income tax returns,
to remind them, how do you register to vote,
do you need to update your voter registration?
You know, 150,000,000 households every year file
their income taxes.
They're already sending forms to the government.
It's a time when they're thinking about what
government does or does not do for them.
It's a great moment to ask them,
to remind them that most of them have another way
they can participate.
You can give them money, but then you also have a say.
It's a small say, but it is a say.
So that's one policy I would love to see. At least ...
HEFFNER: To remind folks that they can be represented
if they choose to be.
WILLIAMSON: Exactly, right?
And so I think that that's,
uh, particularly for low income people,
uh, the income tax filing process is actually
one of their better interactions with government,
uh, because it often means that you're getting
a refund, right, the earned income tax credit
means a tremendous amount to low income families.
Uh, it's a process that feels respectful,
and people have this sense that tax paying
is a civic duty. I'm doing my part.
It's a great moment to remind people that their...
HEFFNER: If you go to the DMV,
you can do it there, why...
WILLIAMSON: Exactly.
HEFFNER: Can't you do it when you're paying taxes,
WILLIAMSON: You're filing taxes...
HEFFNER: So that's the first...
WILLIAMSON: So that's my first sort
of pitch of what, what can we do,
given that people see taxpaying as a civic
responsibility, use it to remind them of
their other civic responsibility, voting.
Beyond that, I think that a thing
that would make a very large difference,
is using the tax paying process to get people
to be better informed about where the money is going, 

right?
And not just because people need to have better
information about that if they're going to act as
citizens and judge the effectiveness of their
representation, but also because it's,
would be the respectful thing to do.
If people are giving you huge chunks of
their salaries, they have a right to know
where that money goes, and frankly, they should,
have a right to have that information presented to them.
They should not have to go digging for it
and I think it could have, particularly if they
learned more about all the different taxes,
and how much people at most income levels,
until you get to maybe the tens of millions
of dollars, at most income levels, are paying quite a 

bit.
Um, reminding people of that fact,
I think, and giving people more accurate information
about where the money goes,
might help people focus their uh,
political energies on the things that really matter
to them, and allow them to connect their values
with their policy preferences a little more directly.
HEFFNER: Why are lower income people paying
a disproportionate amount of tax right now.
WILLIAMSON: So low-income people pay a lot in tax,
uh, in sales taxes primarily uh,
particularly in states that have a grocery tax.
That is an enormous cost to the poor.
There are uh, I believe 13 states where uh,
groceries are taxed at last a little bit,
some uh, where groceries are taxed at the full tax rate.
So that's, you're talking seven,
eight, nine per cent on the groceries you buy.
That's like a month's worth of groceries
to a low-income family.
And when you're making $20,000 a year,
that is an enormous burden, right?
So that's one of the ways low income families pay quite a 

lot.
Another thing of course is the payroll tax
which goes into social security and Medicare.
That’s charged to the first dollar that you earn.
So there are taxes that low-income people pay.
Sometimes they can be really quite heavy.
Um, but I think, from my perspective,
the important thing to remember is,
that when you hear rhetoric about,
oh, half of Americans don’t pay taxes, it’s nonsense.
Low-income people are paying a lot.
They might be paying too much. Right? But...
HEFFNER: But in this context,
why, in every, draft legislation in,
from this new Republican congress,
would the tax burden be lifted disproportionately
to favor higher income people.
WILLIAMSON: Um, you know, I mean I think having
already looked at the healthcare legislation,
they tried to have exceptionally top heavy
tax cuts, uh, in that legislation,
and we're about to see a new,
you know, rollout of tax cuts.
Probably they'll maybe try and do a more serious,
broader tax reform, but if that doesn't work,
you can imagine we're gonna go back
to a system of tax cuts. Um...
HEFFNER: 'Cause I gather we're not going
to be proud if that disproportionality continues.
WILLIAMSON: So, if you ask people,
what bothers you about taxes?
The number one issue is not,
uh, the amount you actually personally pay in taxes.
About eight percent of people pick
that as their top issue.
It’s not even the complexity of the tax code.
The top two concerns are one,
that corporations aren't paying their fair share,
and two, that the wealthy aren't paying their share,
their fair share.
Between the two of them, somewhere between three
fifths, and two thirds of Americans pick
that as their top issue about taxes.
So, if what you end up with,
is a policy coming out of Washington that cuts taxes
at the top, cuts taxes for corporations,
uh, lets corporations that have been hiding
their money overseas bring that money home
at a special rate, those are policies
that might be popular in Washington, and might
be popular with certain lobbyists, but they are
not popular with the American people.
HEFFNER: They're popular in pursuit of a growth
agenda that presumes that these corporations
are likelier to, at a faster pace, improve the stock 

market.
Is that not a simplistically accurate
understanding of why Republicans favor,
besides, you know, serving the interests
of their buddies, they view this as the economic destiny.
WILLIAMSON: Well, I mean there's been a lot of
work done, to examine the impact of tax cuts
at the top, on growth, and there is not a relationship
between tax cuts at the top and growth, right?
There’s a relationship between tax cuts at the top...
HEFFNER: But that's the implicit argument
that all these Republicans are making, is it not.
WILLIAMSON: That, I’ve certainly heard it many times.
It is not born out by the facts.
HEFFNER: Tell us why.
WILLIAMSON: So, if you look,
historically, if you look at the last 65 years,
when we've cut taxes at the very top,
it has not led to great growth. It just hasn't happened.
You just have to look at the historical record to see 

that, and...
HEFFNER: Well read my lips...
WILLIAMSON: [LAUGHTER]
HEFFNER: Originally it's because that's
what happened in the Reagan years,
HW comes into the convention,
says to the American electorate,
"No new taxes," and then taxes folks.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm. Yep, yep.
HEFFNER: And so the irony of your title is,
"Read My Lips," what I'm actually thinking...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: Not what I'm saying.
WILLIAMSON: So I think that that's exactly,
I mean there is this tension in American politics, right?
The, what you hear in American politics,
particularly in Washington,
uh, is sort of an extreme anti-tax rhetoric.
It's been basically the defining issue of the
Republican Party for forty years.
Uh, and you know, you hear it from many
of the most vocal people on taxes, having studied
the Tea-Party, I can assure you.
But what you don't hear much from is what most
people think about taxes, right?
People who are not on the political extremes,
people who are sort of the middle of the road.
And what you hear from those people is a lot
of concern that government doesn't represent them,
a lot of concern about where the boundaries of
the community are, right?
So maybe immigrants aren’t really part of ‘us.’
Maybe immigrants aren't paying their fair share.
You hear a lot of that.
And of course a lot of longstanding rhetoric
about you know, welfare, right?
So I mean, with real racist overtones
that have always been there. Um, so I think that you 

find,
you find these discussions about the limits
of our community, whether government represents us,
but you don't hear the sort of extremist,
taxes can never go up, rhetoric,
uh, that's so popular in Washington D.C.
In fact, if you look at the state level,
when voters are actually asked to vote for tax
increases, in the last 15 years,
you put a tax increase on the ballot at the state
level, voters more, as often as not,
vote for that tax increase.
HEFFNER: And if you don't do that,
you get the most unpopular governor in the country
in Kansas, who basically sold out everything in his 

state...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: Extreme austerity.
WILLIAMSON: Right.
HEFFNER: And the result is,
he's the least favorably viewed governor
in the country, Sam Brownback.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: Um, I think that, when we think
of the classification of, uh, services,
that, folks are drawing those conclusions
because when they do look at their returns,
social security, which can also be controversial
to conservatives, Medicare, examples that
can be viewed as the safety net or welfare
are ostensibly on your return, whereas bridges,
tunnels, infrastructure they're not on your
return, they're not on that receipt.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: Is it, so, if the Democrats are
in any position to negotiate, you propose
including voter registration in any taxation reform.
Having studied this issue, and understanding
both sides’ perspectives, where is the greatest promise
for cooperation, uh, or some kind of sensible
legislation to emerge in the next year.
WILLIAMSON: I have to be honest that I don't
have a lot of hope for the likelihood for bipartisan
and sensible legislation [LAUGHTER] coming
out of Washington this year.
I mean the parties are simply very very far apart.
Uh, and the kind of policies that you see um,
coming out of the Republican party both
the very heavy tax cuts at the top,
certainly, but then also things like the border
adjustment tax, these are things that uh,
a, a lot of people have, are concerned about,
that might be quite difficult to sell,
even to the Republican base,
because you know you can raise concerns about
whether a border adjustment tax is gonna
raise prices at Walmart, right?
That's a very common concern.
Um, so I think that, I wish I had a positive
story to tell you about the likelihood of there
being a middle ground on taxes this year.
I, I don't have a lot of confidence.
HEFFNER: They can't all be nonstarters.
WILLIAMSON: Hmm. So I think that, let me see,
what might be things that are broadly popular?
How about that? I can talk to you about...
HEFFNER: [LAUGHTER]
WILLIAMSON: Things that most Americans
would like to see [LAUGHTER], and whether
their legislators do them or not, right?
HEFFNER: Well it goes back to the thesis of your book...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: From what can we derive that patriotism?
WILLIAMSON: Right. So I think that, uh, one aspect of 

that,
for instance, is that money being held overseas
by corporations, or, you know,
hidden in tax shelters, this is one of the few
aspects of the corporate tax code that most
Americans have ever given any thought to, right?
And they're very concerned about that.
They do not like the idea of large corporations
being able to hide profits overseas,
not pay taxes on that money,
because it's seen as unpatriotic, right?
It echoes the idea that money is actually
literally outside of the country,
echoes the symbolic truths of this,
right, which is that these companies are doing
something that doesn’t’ feel like what a good American 

does.
Uh, so I think that a policy that brought
that money back, and charged it at fair rates,
not at preferential rates, would be something
that Americans would think pretty highly of.
Uh, I think any policy that gave them the sense
that the government was bothering to try
and inform them on where the money goes,
uh, would certainly be something that people
would think favorably about,
even if they didn't want to go through
all the nitty gritty, it would just feel respectful,
uh, as the person who put the money into the to,
to be hearing about where the money was going
in a more, uh, thorough way than we do in our very
partisan rhetoric about what government does.
HEFFNER: Well it, it seems like there will be
a consensus about rates, lowering the rates across
the board, progressively, maybe not progressively,
that is in the eyes of the Republican party
that is in control of all three branches
of government right now.
So it would seem to me that the Democratic party,
as maybe not a formidable opposition,
but as the check, you know, culture...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: 60 votes, can insist on some of these
things that you're describing.
WILLIAMSON: Because the, the process of the tax
cuts is gonna, very very likely happen through
reconciliation, the Democrats are more or less
sidelined in terms of being able to make any demands.
Uh, the Republicans are basically planning to do
this without them, right?
And you saw this on healthcare reform,
and what that means is you end up having to fight
within the Republican party,
and that doesn't mean there's gonna be no fight.
But, the concerns are going to be primarily
the concerns of, uh, the constituents
that the Republican party is serving,
as opposed to the constituencies the
Democratic party is trying to serve,
because they won't have a lot of,
um, bargaining power.
In fact they might have almost literally no
bargaining power.
Um, so I think that you're right,
that um, the Republican vision of what tax reform
should look like is going to be the sort of
determining factor.
And what's not clear to me,
is whether the divisions within the Republican
party that we saw be so critical for uh,
healthcare reform, are going to play out in the
same way this time.
HEFFNER: And also, the reconciliation of the
fiscal disciplinarian, with...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm.
HEFFNER: The all out, um, Live Free and Die,
right, I mean, why there is not an incentive to tax
the wealthy disproportionately,
to reduce the deficit, can you help explain that.
WILLIAMSON: Concerns about the deficit tend to crop
up when the spending part is something you don’t like.
When you're spending on something that I like,
all of a sudden, I'm less of a deficit hawk
than I otherwise was, right?
HEFFNER: But now that the Republicans have complete
control, they have to take ownership of this
legislative body...
WILLIAMSON: Right.
HEFFNER: And whatever the outcomes are,
cause they're...
WILLIAMSON: That's true across the issues.
HEFFNER: Signing off on the spending.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
So I mean, and we've seen that. Obviously the healthcare 

reform
is a good example. Suddenly the actual implications of 

ACA
repeal were, were real, right?
And so suddenly, votes that you'd taken before
that were symbolic votes, were now consequential
votes for which you might be held accountable
to your uh, constituencies, right?
Uh, and so I think to some extent you might see some
of that on tax reform, but its harder because,
because people have this sense that a huge amount
of federal money is wasted, just enormous amounts.
The average, if you ask people,
how many cents out of every dollar do you think
the federal government wastes,
the answer is usually about 50 percent, right?
So, because people think a huge amount of money
is wasted, when there are tax cuts,
people don't always think that that means
there are going to be cuts to services,
or cuts to programs that I care about
because so many of these programs are not as visible as 

they ought
to be, and also because there's this perception
that waste is so high, we could just cut the waste,
and then there'd still be all the money
for the good stuff, right?
And so I think that on tax reform,
the costs, like, that we saw with ACA repeal,
the costs were obvious to people,
I was gonna lose my health insurance,
Medicaid was gonna get cut,
there were these very clear cut costs.
The costs when you do tax reform,
are less clear to people.
HEFFNER: What do you expect will result from
the various factions within the part?
WILLIAMSON: My goodness. You know, political scientists 

this
Fall learned not to make predictions.
HEFFNER: Right.
WILLIAMSON: That was one of the outcomes of it,
is political scientists walking back
from the idea of making any predictions.
Um, no, I mean it will be very interesting to see.
I think it's certainly the case that it will be
easier for the Republicans to get consensus around
tax cuts, than broad tax reform.
I think tax reform is a big lift in any context,
and in our incredibly polarized political context,
polarized even within the Republican
party now, um, the, you know,
you have sort of the most extreme wing,
the Freedom Caucus wing, um,
who are not willing to go along,
to get along within their own party.
Um, I think that tax reform would be an enormous lift.
I think that tax cuts are the sort
of things where you can still make the kind of 

compromises,
at least within the Republican party,
and that's probably what you're gonna end up with.
HEFFNER: And, and that then does not get
at the systemic issues, right.
WILLIAMSON: I wouldn't...
HEFFNER: ... without real reform?
WILLIAMSON: No, I wouldn't think so,
and in particular I think one of the things
it's likely to do is result in, uh,
large tax cuts at the top, which is clearly
a Republican priority, uh, despite the fact
that it’s not a priority for the American people.
HEFFNER: When we talk about the extreme tax cuts
at the top that already exist,
we're talking about the structural issues
that allow for loopholes, for companies
and individuals to get around paying tax.
So, in that case it's not about increasing
or decreasing rates within the current system.
It's like, what the president was able to do
with his own tax returns over what we know beat the 

system.
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm. Well, so there's a particular thing 

about,
this is a, now we're gonna get a little wonky,
but uh, the alternative minimum tax,
the AMT, which is the reason that Donald Trump
paid any taxes of any moment,
uh, I think he would have paid a three percent rate
if it weren't for the AMT.
He wants to abolish the AMT.
So, uh, some of the things that are in place to make
sure that, if you have all the loopholes
in the world, you still end up paying some taxes.
Those are things that I, at least in everything
administration they would like to get rid of.
Um, so there's a distinction between
corporate taxes, where what you might describe
as loopholes are really prevalent,
and the rates actually are not a very good descriptor
of what people, what companies end up paying,
and the individual income tax, right?
And the individual income tax,
Americans underestimate this,
is up to the tens of millions of dollars level,
very progressive.
In fact we have one of the most progressive tax
systems in the world.
Our tax system is more progressive than Europe.
And I tell people that. They never buy it.
But it's true because uh, most European countries
rely on a VAT, uh, basically what amounts to
a sales tax, very heavily.
We rely very heavily on an income tax, right?
So, the rates really do matter,
and while loopholes are obviously an important
thing, especially for the superrich,
the very, very rich, maybe the top two
or three thousand households, of course,
um, you know, people who are simply well off,
people like doctors and lawyers and uh,
people who have a large income from their salary,
those people are actually paying a lot in taxes, right?
So um, I don't think it's, just closing loopholes
doesn't necessarily, um, have the effect Americans
imagine it does, if what you're also doing is lowering 

rates.
HEFFNER: The reform, I gather,
for the individuals to have an impact,
would be if capital gains and, within the stock market...
WILLIAMSON: Mm-hmm. Right.
HEFFNER: A lot to explore.
I hope you'll continue to track this with us,
and congratulations on the new book.
WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much.
HEFFNER: Thank you Vanessa.
And thanks to you in the audience.
I hope you join us again next time,
for a thoughtful excursion into the world of ideas.
Until then, keep an open mind.
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