Since its introduction, the Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that its tax plan would reverse a trend of rising income inequality in America. The ensuing debate focused almost exclusively on who pays what.  Serious questions about the underlying premise – that income inequality is historically bad and getting worse – have largely been ignored.

That’s a mistake, as our previous posts have made clear.  Income shares tend to fluctuate from generation to generation, but it’s increasingly clear that the narrative of a massive increase in inequality over the past four decades has been driven by a handful of academics …

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Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) once again gave life to the moribund Build Back Better discussions Wednesday by outlining a new, slimmed-down version of the bill that he could support.  According to Politico:

Manchin said that if Democrats want to cut a deal on a party-line bill using the budget process to circumvent a Republican filibuster, they need to start with prescription drug savings and tax reform. He envisions whatever revenue they can wring out of that as split evenly between reducing the federal deficit and inflation, on the one hand, and enacting new climate and social programs, on the other …

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Leading up to tonight’s State of the Union address, advocates of the stalled Build Back Better Act appear to be spinning their wheels again. Instead of listening to their detractors and making the necessary changes, they rely instead on the idea that if only they improve their messaging a little bit, the whole plan could still come together.

Last week, they blamed the press for describing the bill, accurately, as a package of social spending provisions.  According to POLITICO:

As the Biden administration looks over the cadaver that is their Build Back Better agenda, wondering what components, if any, it can …

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According to POLITICO and numerous other news outlets, top White House advisors remain convinced that pushing policies to make wealthy individuals and corporations start “paying their fair share” is a winning strategy in its own right, and not just a means of paying for other programs:

With that in mind, the Democratic pollsters John Anzalone and Matt Hogan are urging the party’s candidates to focus on forcing the rich and corporations to pay more in taxes.

Just a few problems with that prescription.  First, successful Americans already pay their fair share.  According to the IRS, the top 50 percent of …

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When the Build Back Better Act (BBB) made its way to the Senate last year, an odd trend emerged: Every time West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin would make a clear statement regarding his position on the BBB, the Capitol Hill press corps would respond by ignoring him.

This began last September, when Sen. Manchin made public a signed agreement with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer outlining Manchin’s position:

The West Virginia senator has been distributing the document to Democratic colleagues and leaders in recent days to underscore that he has outlined his red lines on President Joe Biden’s jobs and families …

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