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Vanessa Williamson on Taxes and Democracy — Transcript

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0:01[music]
0:04>> Hi everyone.
0:05Paul Krugman here again. This week I'm
0:08talking to Vanessa Williamson,
0:10>> [music]
0:10>> senior fellow at the Brookings
0:12Institution and author of
0:14fantastic short history of taxation
0:18called The Price of Democracy.
0:20Uh which is I'm pretty sure an allusion
0:23to Oliver Wendell Holmes the price of
0:26civilization but a very different take
0:28and because I'm so interested in now
0:30these days in tax policy I thought I
0:32could talk to Vanessa to get a a sense
0:35of um
0:37a lot of these issues where I am very
0:38much an amateur and she's done the the
0:40homework. So hi.
0:42>> Hi, thank you so much for having me.
0:44>> Yeah. Um so
0:46you know, let's talk about the about the
0:49title of the book first because
0:51obviously the famous Oliver Wendell
0:53Holmes quote which I've seen in slightly
0:55different versions but anyway
0:57um was basically saying you know, if you
0:58want you want decent roads and um
1:02and public order that you need to have
1:03taxes to pay for it but you're making a
1:05a much broader point there and why don't
1:07you explain the why you say it's the
1:10price of democracy?
1:11>> Yeah, so I love the Oliver Wendell
1:12Holmes quote, right? That it's the price
1:14of civilization but
1:16um as I was writing this book which was
1:18just going to be a history of taxation
1:19in America, it struck me that taxation
1:21is really more than the price of
1:23civilization. It's the price of
1:24democracy. Um and that's because
1:27democracy isn't just being able to vote.
1:29It's people having the power to actually
1:31make change through their government and
1:34if the government doesn't have enough
1:35money to act then
1:37you know, even if you can vote, it's
1:38inconsequential. And you know,
1:40historically this is a very deep story.
1:42Taxation and representation really do
1:44develop together. This goes back all the
1:46way to 1215 with Magna Carta, right?
1:48When King John had been taxing at a
1:50higher level
1:51um and the barons demanded uh that if
1:54there were going to be extraordinary
1:55taxation, there had the king had to get
1:58the quote general consent of the realm,
2:00right? And that was a very early
2:02iteration attempt to create what
2:04eventually became Parliament, right? So,
2:06the very origins of representation
2:09uh in our
2:10in our historical tradition
2:12uh are really about taxation because
2:13what you find is that um
2:16when
2:17uh rulers want to tax, they become
2:20dependent on the taxpayers, right? And
2:22it builds um a connection between the
2:25ruler and the ruled, and it gives the
2:27taxpayers power. And you know, I think
2:29commonly the story you hear and there's
2:31so much anti-tax sort of mythology
2:32around is you'd imagine the taxpayers
2:35use that power to avoid taxation. The
2:37opposite is true. When representation
2:40develops, taxes go up because of course
2:43the taxpayers can now have a say in what
2:44the government is doing. So, taxation
2:46representation developed together
2:48historically, and they develop together
2:50cross-nationally. The freest countries
2:52today are high-tax countries.
2:54>> That would be I guess above all the sort
2:57of Nordic countries are a very high-tax
3:00countries.
3:00>> Sure, but it's true across the board,
3:02you know.
3:03Um
3:04even highly developed economies that are
3:06authoritarian have lower taxes than you
3:08would expect um given their level of
3:10development. And that's because
3:11authoritarians are simply not very good
3:14at raising taxes. They much prefer other
3:16forms of revenue, you know, whether
3:17that's a gold mine or um the spoils of
3:20war, fees and fines that they can apply
3:22to their political opponents. You know,
3:23they're just other mechanisms that do
3:26not make them dependent on the sort of
3:28rank and file people of their country.
3:30>> Okay. And I want to come back to the
3:33high-tax countries in a minute, but the
3:36uh
3:36one point that you make uh I think at
3:38several points during in in the course
3:40of the book is that uh there's a kind of
3:43the idea that taxes are okay is very
3:46much a sort of challenge to the uh
3:50essentially wealthy people saying,
3:51"Well, my wealth is mine and uh nobody
3:55has the right to take some of it. And
3:57you there's a kind of statement of
3:58principle that says, well, okay, but you
4:01too are subject to the laws of the of
4:03the republic and must pay. Right? That's
4:05that seems to be a pretty big uh part of
4:08the story.
4:08>> Yeah, there's this long-standing
4:10tension. And it's not all wealthy people
4:12or all the elites at any time in our
4:13history, but there are often some uh who
4:17are very, very wealthy and and
4:18fundamentally they don't like to see
4:20themselves as citizens, right? They like
4:21to see themselves as masters. The first
4:23group of people who felt this way, of
4:25course, were the slave owners who were
4:27desperately opposed to taxation. The
4:28anti-tax components of our Constitution
4:31were all put there as part of a
4:32compromise with slavery, right? They
4:33were afraid
4:34>> good point.
4:35>> Yeah, they were afraid the slaveholder
4:37class was afraid either of of mass
4:39democracy even only of property white
4:41men. So, we get the 3/5 clause. And they
4:43were specifically afraid that if every
4:45if every property white man could vote,
4:48what you would end up with is tax
4:49abolition by taxation, right? That they
4:52would tax slavery out of existence. Um
4:54and so, that's why you see these
4:55anti-tax measures in the Constitution.
4:57But it happens again in the Gilded Age.
4:59Again, you know, you see Rockefeller
5:01claiming that the um you know, high
5:03graduate taxation is the most
5:04fundamental threat posed by democracy.
5:07You see efforts to roll back suffrage
5:09rights during that period even in
5:10northern cities. So, um it's a very
5:12long-standing fight uh
5:15between sort of sort of mass public and
5:17the kind of things democratic
5:18governments usually want to do, roads
5:20and schools and things of that sort.
5:22Uh and a a fraction of the elite who are
5:25willing to accept democracy as long as
5:27that democracy is too poor to threaten
5:29their power.
5:30>> Wow. Okay. Um
5:34Come back to the history shortly. Um one
5:37thing that
5:38I I probably don't talk about enough
5:40when writing about these things, but
5:42it's it's something I certainly always
5:44taught and and it's a class on on on
5:47economics of the welfare state and um
5:49which is that the
5:51high tax
5:52um generous welfare state countries
5:55don't have highly progressive tax
5:57systems. That the US, you know, the
6:00state of US debate where everybody's for
6:02well,
6:04it it's it's always about should we
6:05raise taxes on the wealthy, which is a
6:07which is an important concern, but but
6:09uh places like Denmark or or Sweden or
6:13um
6:14just in general European welfare states,
6:16they they don't actually they they have
6:18high taxes sort of like on everybody.
6:21>> Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, and
6:22it's also how we pay for social security
6:24and Medicare. I mean, big social safety
6:26net programs are typically funded by
6:28broad-based taxes, right? Um anyway, I
6:31think it's really important to remember
6:32all the things that taxes do. We've
6:33really focused on the redistribution
6:35part and it's so important, absolutely,
6:37especially now with the incredible
6:38consolidation of wealth in this country.
6:40We focus on the sort of straightforward
6:41redistribution part, the top rates, that
6:43kind of thing, whether we should have a
6:45wealth tax. And that's important, you're
6:46exactly right. But at the same time, uh
6:48we just need a lot of revenue. And um
6:51traditionally, and I you know, in terms
6:53of sort of long-term sustainability,
6:55that's something that we fund by taxing
6:57everybody. But that's part of
6:59citizenship. I mean, one of the things
7:00that is sort of a you know, a part of
7:03that anti-tax anti-tax myths that you
7:05hear all the time, you know, people are
7:07under the impression that Americans hate
7:08paying taxes. It's just not true. People
7:10are quite proud to pay taxes and they're
7:12very willing to pay taxes for things uh
7:14they think are valuable, things like
7:15social security and Medicare. So, I
7:17think the fact that we've shied away
7:19from asking people to support their
7:21government by paying taxes
7:23uh at a federal level um is really
7:25weakened, you know, the the sort of
7:28civic rhetoric of this country. And I
7:30think it's left us in a terrible
7:31position. If we can't convince people
7:33that their government's worth paying
7:34for, you know, how can we convince them
7:36that democracy is valuable?
7:38>> Yeah.
7:39Um
7:39indeed. Uh one of the things one of the
7:42episodes there were several you know
7:44episodes that I actually was
7:47ill-informed about, at least you know, I
7:49I kind of knew the numbers but not at
7:50all the the the political
7:52uh history, was the uh there was this
7:55period basically under the New Deal and
7:57through World War II when the idea of
8:00broad-based taxes that lots of people
8:03first of all, you know, as social
8:04insurance programs and then the but also
8:07broad-based income tax really became
8:11uh established and you had so I mean
8:13they that came as kind of a surprise
8:15that people were willing to accept it,
8:16right?
8:17>> Yeah. Yeah, so um
8:19before World War II, the income tax was
8:21like what was called a class tax. It was
8:23paid only by the very wealthy.
8:24>> Right.
8:24>> Um and our the country relied uh far
8:27more heavily on tariffs.
8:28>> Right.
8:28>> By the way, the tariff chapter of my
8:30book is not what I expected as I was
8:31writing it to be
8:32>> Yeah.
8:32>> as relevant as it ended up being. Um but
8:35anyway, so we um you know, so most
8:36people the way they contributed to the
8:37federal government was through the
8:38higher prices that resulted from the
8:39tariffs and the income tax was a tax on
8:42the on the very wealthy. Well, World War
8:44II comes along, we've got to pay for
8:45that. We need a ton of money and they
8:47decide to go with an income tax. Now,
8:49we're talking about a time people didn't
8:51have pocket calculators. A lot of people
8:53hadn't been to high school um and
8:55suddenly they're going to have to fill
8:56out a paper form and and pay their
8:58taxes, right? And it's not going to be
8:59withheld in the first years. So, um
9:01there was a lot of fear in the Treasury
9:03Department. Could Americans do it? And
9:06you know, the
9:07there you know,
9:08uh these incredible sort of campaigns to
9:10let people know about the taxes to help
9:12them pay. There was a song by Irving
9:13Berlin called I Paid My Income Tax
9:15Today. There are Donald Duck cartoons
9:17that played before movies.
9:18>> Oh my god.
9:19>> Yes. Yes, so Donald Duck figures out how
9:21to fill out his taxes um in the cartoon.
9:23Uh and you know, so it was this huge
9:25effort and in the end it worked, right?
9:27Americans paid their taxes. We paid a
9:30much larger fraction of the bill for
9:31World War II than we otherwise could
9:33have. And what's especially amazing is
9:35how positively people felt about those
9:37taxes. They were voluntary contributions
9:39to the treasury made out to Uncle Sam.
9:41Um
9:42And you know, polls suggested that you
9:44know, 90% of Americans thought it was
9:45fair, right? Because they they saw it as
9:47a worthwhile thing to support the United
9:49States.
9:50>> I guess that the big increases in
9:52taxation have always come around wars,
9:54right? World War I is really where the
9:56income tax comes in and
9:59even for the wealthy and then World War
10:00II, but it's still that that's a
10:02complete change in attitude. I don't
10:04know uh uh
10:06I don't know if you were
10:07you're younger than me. I don't know if
10:09you remember the um
10:11after 9/11
10:13when Tom Delay the
10:15house when he said that nothing is more
10:17important in the time of war than
10:19cutting taxes.
10:20>> Yeah, extraordinary. It was the first
10:21time we fought a major war in this
10:23country without raising taxes and you
10:25know, I think it speaks to the decline
10:27of accountability.
10:28Right? That we stopped having that
10:30connection between
10:32the decisions of our policy makers and
10:34the costs.
10:36>> We used to say was that America was kind
10:39of special at least compared with a
10:41number of other advanced countries in
10:44the fact that we were in fact so
10:45successful in getting people to pay
10:47income tax that there was a lot less
10:48cheating. Is that um
10:52Do you is Do you think that's a Is that
10:53a
10:54I don't know if you had touched on it in
10:55the book. I don't remember, but it is Is
10:57that something that you that that you
10:59think is explained by the history or by
11:01the contingency or is it something about
11:03the American at least what we used to be
11:05like as a country?
11:06>> Yeah.
11:07>> [laughter]
11:07>> Yeah, that I mean that's an open
11:08question certainly. The yes, American
11:10tax morale has always been high. That's
11:12the jargon term, right? For
11:14willingness to pay taxes and that's
11:15partly I think part of our civic
11:17culture. People see tax paying as
11:18patriotic. You know, if you ask
11:21Americans is it every American civic
11:23duty to pay their fair share of taxes,
11:25you get over 90% of Americans agreeing
11:27sometimes as high as 95%. I I looked for
11:30poll data that was showed equivalent
11:32levels of consensus and you have to ask,
11:34you know, is Elvis alive? Did we really
11:36land on the moon? You know, I mean just
11:38really out there stuff. This is
11:40something Americans it's a shared belief
11:42and it and it you know, I I checked um
11:44the first time uh President Trump and in
11:46his campaign against Hillary Clinton
11:48talked about not paying taxes being
11:49smart. This was a huge change of
11:51rhetoric. If you imagine Mitt Romney
11:53saying he'd always paid 13 or 14% in in
11:56in income taxes. This was a huge change
11:57in rhetoric and it didn't shift American
11:59attitudes. Uh Americans did not come to
12:01see all of a sudden uh cheating on your
12:04taxes as acceptable. Uh they see it as
12:06wrong.
12:07>> One of the points you make along the way
12:08is that America US the public's
12:10attitudes about taxes really haven't
12:12changed that much over the years. That
12:14that uh um that I think the line you
12:16used was that since the 1980s
12:19uh the policy and the politics of taxes
12:21have changed but Americans' attitudes
12:22have really not. Want to enlarge on that
12:24a bit what what you mean by that?
12:26>> Yeah, so I clearly we live in a in a
12:29startlingly anti-tax time. One of the
12:30two major parties of sees taxation as
12:33fundamentally bad, sees taxes as
12:35something that should always go down uh
12:37at least for the wealthy. Um and you
12:39know, and that is a historical oddity.
12:42In the mid-20th century uh neither
12:44political party saw taxation as a
12:46particularly major issue. I mean it was
12:47important but it was technical. Uh it
12:49wasn't a major part of either party's
12:51platform. Um and that changes in the in
12:53the period after the civil rights
12:55movement, right? Uh where again you see
12:58the the rise of the kind of anti-tax
13:00rhetoric that is fundamentally a kind of
13:02anti-democratic rhetoric and that grew
13:03more and more extreme over the following
13:05decades and that's you know, sort of
13:07where we are today. Um
13:09So so yeah, the the strange thing about
13:11that, right? Is as our politics have
13:13become more extreme in so many ways but
13:15I you know, the sort of politics of
13:17taxation have become more extreme, the
13:18underlying views of Americans have been
13:20markedly stable. Um
13:22and I think that speaks to the the
13:23decline of the quality of our democracy,
13:25right? Because what happened was the
13:27politics became untethered from from
13:30public views, right? So, most Americans,
13:32you know, as I said, say that yeah, you
13:34have a responsibility to pay your fair
13:36share of taxes. Most Americans say that
13:38paying taxes is patriotic. If you ask
13:40people what their top concerns are about
13:42the income or about the tax system,
13:43their top two concerns
13:45for literally decades have been that
13:47corporations, one and two, the wealthy
13:49are not paying their share. The third is
13:51the complexity of the tax code.
13:53Somewhere below that falls the amount
13:54they personally pay. So, um you know,
13:58there's just uh
13:59uh uh on this issue and on many others,
14:01frankly. I mean, you see it on things
14:02like gun control um or maybe the minimum
14:05wage, for example. The the The attitudes
14:07of most people are simply not a good
14:09predictor of our politics, and I think
14:10that speaks to a real erosion of our
14:12democracy.
14:13>> Uh so, just on this when you say after
14:16the civil rights movement, um
14:18now, there's two interpretations, I
14:20think
14:21there's some of of both in in in your
14:23book and in The Price of Democracy. Uh
14:25one is that
14:27people feeling, well, my money is going
14:29to support the bums on welfare because
14:31there's a huge expansion in in AFDC, uh
14:35aid families with dependent children,
14:37which is, you know, the classic welfare,
14:38although it's never really all that
14:39money, but it
14:41much more but big expansion in the
14:43in the visible support for non-white
14:46uh
14:47people. Uh and is it my my tax dollars
14:50are going to pay for that? Or how much
14:51of it is just the you know, that that
14:53the um the uh the
14:56the empowerment of
14:59conservative politics, put it mildly, uh
15:01because of the of the backlash. Is it
15:04>> Yeah.
15:05>> I think both are happening at once,
15:06right? So, at the same time, uh you see
15:10uh welfare programs that had previously
15:13been available pr-
15:14almost exclusively to white Americans
15:16suddenly are more available to black
15:17Americans.
15:19Um and you see obviously growing black
15:20political power after the Civil Rights
15:22Act.
15:23Um and you there's so so there's a a
15:25racial resentment a backlash to that,
15:27right? Uh and the sort of, you know,
15:29origins of the sort of welfare queen
15:30rhetoric. We've all heard this story.
15:32So, that's happening. At the same time,
15:34uh you start to see the uh divide
15:38between the wealthy and the rest of us,
15:39right? You see that the the sort of
15:41compression of incomes, the compression
15:43of the economic spectrum that had
15:45typified the mid-20th century, you see
15:47that start to break down. Um and you see
15:50the decline of union power, the rise of
15:51business power, and all of these things
15:53are pushing in the same direction
15:55towards an increasingly radical anti-tax
15:57politics on the right.
15:59>> So, there's a a moment an episode that
16:02really looms quite large in The Price of
16:05Democracy that I was really kind of
16:07unaware of, which is 1978
16:10uh change in taxes. This is pre-Reagan,
16:13although obviously some of the things
16:15that gave rise to Reaganism are very
16:16much
16:17in the air, but this is under Carter.
16:20There's a big Well, why don't you tell
16:21tell me tell us about what happened in
16:22'78 cuz I thought that was a really
16:24remarkable story.
16:26>> Yeah, so you I mean, you have to make a
16:27choice, right? So, where are you going
16:28to say that sort of turning point was,
16:30right? You could claim it was Reagan
16:31era, you could say all these things. And
16:33I did I settled on 1978 because three
16:35things happened that year that I think
16:36were really significant.
16:38And again, showed
16:41sort of showed what the conservative
16:43alliance against taxation would look
16:45like. A bunch of different forces were
16:46brought together. First of all, you see
16:49uh a bill pass that is an enormous uh
16:52rollback on taxes for the wealthy.
16:54Something that the New York Times at the
16:55time described as sort of un- un-
16:58incomprehensible in in terms of our
16:59politics, right? Because before that it
17:00had been assumed that Americans like
17:02raising taxes on the rich. It would be
17:03very hard to do a tax cut that just
17:05helped the rich. Um but they the you
17:08know, the new corporate interests uh
17:10found a way to to do that, right? And
17:12so, you see this big uh rollback on
17:15taxes uh for corporations and the
17:16wealthy. At the same time,
17:19uh there's an attack on the IRS that is
17:21the first of what would become a
17:22recurring problem for the IRS. That is
17:25to say,
17:26some issue in tax enforcement gets blown
17:30up in the conservative media and becomes
17:32sort of a
17:34it makes the IRS into kind of a
17:37a whipping boy
17:38for anti-tax interest. In this case,
17:41what had happened was the IRS
17:43was obligated by law
17:45to
17:47figure out how to remove the tax-exempt
17:49status for the segregation academies,
17:51right? The whites-only schools that
17:53opened in the South as white families
17:55fled integrated schooling.
17:57And so those schools segregated were
17:59segregated. They discriminated on the
18:01basis of race and therefore they did not
18:03qualify for a tax exemption, the courts
18:04had determined. So now the IRS has to
18:06figure out what's a segregation academy
18:09and how do we go about removing their um
18:12removing their tax exemption.
18:14Um
18:15and this was really hard to do because
18:17not because lots of schools opened in
18:19that period and lots of schools are
18:20segregated, right? And so there's this
18:23there's also sort of a move to church
18:25schooling, there's a sort of
18:26evangelicalism in the you know in the
18:28same period and so there's the IRS is
18:30trying to sort through this and
18:32after several efforts to try and remove
18:35the tax exemption from the most obvious
18:36segregation academies, they issue a new
18:38set of rules and it becomes this trigger
18:40on the far right about how the IRS is
18:42coming for our tax exemptions and there
18:44are congressional hearings and there's
18:46all this sort of folderol about it,
18:48right?
18:50And this
18:52was it is widely agreed a key precursor
18:56to the development of the moral majority
18:58because you know conservatives have been
19:00trying to get evangelicals on board with
19:03the conservative movement for ages but
19:04evangelicals didn't want to participate
19:06in politics.
19:07But this issue brought them into
19:09politics in a new way and so there's an
19:11amazing quote,
19:13sort of suggesting that it it you know,
19:15even abortion couldn't get evangelicals
19:17into politics, but coming for their
19:18school's tax exemption did, right? So,
19:20that happens at the same time. And then,
19:22the third thing that happens in that
19:23same year is Proposition 13, right? The
19:26property tax cap in California. Now,
19:28property tax caps
19:30have a long and storied history in
19:31America. They were invented in the
19:34Redeemer era that followed
19:36radical reconstruction, right? As white
19:38supremacists came back to power, one of
19:40the ways they disenfranchised
19:42poorer whites and black Americans was by
19:44putting in place constitutional tax
19:46caps, so that even if they managed to
19:48lose an election,
19:49even if the blacks somehow managed to
19:51vote, if what poor whites managed to
19:52vote, they still wouldn't have the power
19:54to raise taxes on the rich.
19:55Now, suddenly that same idea, which had
19:57been prevalent across the South,
20:00um
20:00100 years earlier, suddenly that idea
20:02becomes
20:04uh
20:04uh a a force in in California, right?
20:09Uh and it's very much part, again, part
20:10of the Civil Rights era backlash.
20:12And you they put in place a stringent
20:14property tax cap that of course applies
20:16largely to this day,
20:17um and undermined public education
20:20funding in the state for decades to
20:21come.
20:23>> Yeah, I I I lived in California in the
20:25mid-90s and was always struck by
20:29because of Prop 13, uh
20:31uh
20:32you know, we we had newly purchased a
20:34house there and we were probably paying
20:36five times the taxes of some people a
20:38little ways down the down the road
20:39because of of the um
20:42and it it it was a remarkable thing for
20:44people who stayed in their houses. It
20:45kind of, you know, basically older white
20:47people who who already already owned
20:49their houses got a tremendous tax
20:51advantage from that. But, yeah, it was
20:52really something. Um
20:55The actually, just quite quick question.
20:57The '78, you said the tax cuts,
20:59um
21:00just
21:01for listeners, and actually, I should
21:02probably refresh. What was What were the
21:04actual tax cuts in '78? Just cuz it's
21:06part of the the story I've been trying
21:07to to piece together.
21:09>> Yeah, so there's um there's a really uh
21:13fascinating sort of movement on the
21:15right that sort of leads into this
21:17moment. And it's a series of corporate
21:18breaks. Um
21:20uh
21:21but what leads into it, fascinatingly,
21:23is um
21:24in the Kennedy era, they were also
21:26trying to cut taxes, right? And they was
21:27there was a you know, the economy was
21:29booming, they didn't need they were the
21:30rates went up automatically, right? Uh
21:32or not rates. Um
21:33but the
21:34>> It's bracket creep, yeah.
21:36>> Right. Bracket creep.
21:37>> I remember that.
21:37>> Right. So there was bracket creep, so
21:38they were they had more money than they
21:39needed. Um
21:41and uh when Kennedy wanted to assemble
21:44business interests to uh cut um
21:49to cut taxes for, you know, businesses,
21:51uh he couldn't find any groups to act as
21:54the sort of grassroots mobilizer of
21:56this, right? And so um what you what you
21:59find uh over the coming decades just in
22:02it and exactly at the time that union
22:03power is in decline, right? They start
22:06to actually develop these business
22:07interests, right? Um and uh the uh
22:12there's a there are these moves uh to uh
22:15sort of make uh
22:17what now sounds completely sort of
22:20standard rhetoric, but at the time was
22:22very strange. This sort of uh this new
22:24rhetoric about uh the possibility that
22:26these taxes were stifling innovation,
22:28right? And that we know, like
22:30entrepreneurship and all of this sort of
22:32rhetoric. That's really developed in
22:33this period and that's where they come
22:36in with these corporate tax breaks uh to
22:38you know, to basically I mean, massively
22:41upwardly redistributive tax breaks.
22:43Uh sort of and they what they did was
22:45they built again, grassroots
22:47organizations for business that had
22:50today seem of course run-of-the-mill,
22:52but at the time were completely novel.
22:54So for example, they would bring in um
22:57uh the sort of the lobbyists in
22:59Washington uh would bring in the
23:04local
23:05business leaders in in all the
23:07districts, right? They'd have sort of
23:08fly-ins to have
23:11you know, to have representatives here
23:12from their own
23:14from their own constituents on on these
23:16business issues. So that was
23:19a real
23:20development in terms of sort of lobbying
23:22prowess. And it so it and it paid off
23:25paid off tremendously. Yeah.
23:27>> So and so yeah, I mean
23:29um
23:30in '78 and actually until until Newt
23:33Gingrich comes along, you still have
23:35Democrats controlling the House of
23:36Representatives. This is not a this is
23:39not a
23:40a Trump era
23:41Congress and and and it's a Democratic
23:44president. So how does how do
23:48uh
23:49elected officials I mean the public
23:53didn't support tax breaks for the rich.
23:55I think
23:56here I public opinion would have been
23:59um
24:00pretty you know, populist in that sense.
24:02What what moved the votes? Why was
24:04Congress doing
24:05doing this? How did that influence work?
24:08>> Yeah, so I think that one of the things
24:10that you see is
24:12um
24:13I just um
24:16I mean at the end of the day
24:17the fact is that mass public opinion
24:20isn't what causes politics to happen,
24:22right? Politics is not a public opinion
24:24poll. It's
24:26the
24:27uh
24:28mobilization of organized interests
24:31through a party system, right? So it you
24:35shouldn't expect things that most people
24:37have believed to sort of automatically
24:38become law. That's just not how it's
24:39done, right? You have to have organized
24:41interests.
24:42You know, this is a it's a collective
24:43action problem fundamentally, right? Um
24:46so that I mean that's sort of underlying
24:48thing. But what you see is as the
24:50economy
24:52sort of divides, right? And as you have
24:54this sort of
24:56uh
24:57concentration of wealth at the top um
25:00it's self-reinforcing.
25:02Right? As the rich get richer, they have
25:04more power because money is power,
25:06right? And they start to invest very
25:08heavily in having greater political
25:10power, right? And you know, there's a
25:11lot of concern about the sort of Nader
25:13era and all the sort of regulatory
25:14things that were happening in the early
25:16'70s that really helped to bring
25:17business power
25:18uh you know, to to bear uh to try and
25:20stop these kinds of things.
25:21>> might want to talk about that. What the
25:23Nader era meaning that that this is when
25:25corporations had business really started
25:27to say it needs to stand up and and
25:29throw its weight around.
25:31>> Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you see
25:33uh you know, what I I would deem a great
25:35deal of progress on things like
25:36environmental protection uh on sort of
25:39regulation of of consumer goods as well,
25:41right? Uh these are some of the
25:42successes of the you know, air clean
25:44air, right? Clean water. Uh these
25:46successes of the early 1970s. Well, for
25:49more conservative-leaning business
25:51leaders, these were seen as
25:52encroachments on their capacity to
25:53become profitable, right? And so,
25:56um
25:57uh that helps
25:59convince them to devote themselves to
26:01politics, right? And as they succeed, of
26:02course, they become wealthier. And this
26:04is exactly the same thing that happens
26:05with the tax code, right? As the top
26:07rates are rolled back then, you know,
26:10and as you know, there become more and
26:11more loopholes for corporations to avoid
26:14paying the taxes they owe as the IRS
26:15becomes underfunded so that they aren't
26:17in a place to actually enforce the tax
26:19code for wealthy people, all of those
26:21things are reinforcing, right? because
26:22it you know, a substantial portion of
26:25the
26:26uh
26:26the inequality that we've seen over the
26:29recent decades can be attributed to the
26:30decline of top top rates, right? So, it
26:33it's a it's a really uh negative uh
26:35reinforcing cycle.
26:38>> When I started sort of loosely speaking
26:40doing the math, I was actually shocked,
26:41particularly if we're talking about the
26:42very, very top how much the
26:45the change is actually driven by the
26:47changes in tax by cuts in tax rates.
26:49That it's you know, we would
26:51economists we're we like to talk about
26:53technology and and competition and all
26:56of that, but actually taxes are a very
26:58large part of the story. And this is
27:00This really gets going. I mean, the um
27:03uh
27:05it really is it really is the '70s where
27:06this starts to happen.
27:09>> It is it is in a sense mechanical,
27:11right? I you know, I just cuz the the
27:13the money that you you did the money
27:14that you didn't have to pay in taxes, uh
27:17now you have that and it will accumulate
27:18more over time. And it also has
27:19pre-distribution effects, right? So, if
27:22you um
27:24when, for example, uh
27:26a CEO 90 uh cents out of every
27:29additional dollar that they were going
27:30to get paid was going to go to the
27:31government, right? Which was true in the
27:32mid-20th century.
27:34You know, the board of directors had not
27:36a great incentive to raise their pay
27:38unless they really had done something to
27:39deserve it, right? And I mean, there you
27:41go. There's research on this, as you
27:42well know. Um but uh but, you know, as
27:45the tax rates go down, it becomes
27:46easier. It's cheaper, basically, to
27:48overpay executives. And and, you know,
27:50so it really feeds in both afterwards,
27:52right? That that the you have these
27:54ballooning paychecks and they get to
27:55keep more of that money, but also it
27:57encourages it gives an incentive to
27:59balloon the paychecks in the first place
28:00when when those very, very high salaries
28:02are under-taxed.
28:03>> Yeah, this is always this is a
28:04long-standing thing. The um
28:07you know, the the the committees that
28:09decide on a CEO's pay have always been
28:12basically appointed by the been
28:13appointed by the CEO. But why didn't why
28:16did that translate into 30 times the
28:17average worker's salary
28:19um in in the '60s and 300 times now? And
28:23part of the answer is well, what you're
28:24saying, that that uh if it wasn't worth
28:27pissing off people that much. I'm sorry
28:29to use the technical terms.
28:31Um when when the CEO didn't really get
28:33to keep the money anyway, and now that
28:36he can, they do it.
28:38>> Exactly. Exactly.
28:40>> Um
28:40you get these first wave of big sort of
28:44top-end tax cuts uh under Reagan, But,
28:47fairly quickly we get people agitating
28:50about the budget deficit. This is also
28:52when the budget deficit first becomes
28:53significant for the first time since
28:55World War II, and a lot of you know, we
28:58need to cut back and there's beginnings
29:00of austerity. Why isn't there more of a
29:04backlash against these these tax cuts?
29:06Why didn't that happen?
29:08>> So, I think there are two things going
29:10on. I mean, first of all, again, there's
29:12just the
29:13the very effective lobbying techniques
29:15that, you know, the business uses,
29:16right? They're very powerful. Um and you
29:19know, there's all kinds of political
29:20science research research to suggest
29:22that, you know, uh legislators are more
29:24responsive uh to donors than to
29:26constituents. They're more responsive,
29:28you know, to um
29:29to organized interests as opposed to
29:31sort of general. And they And they they
29:32misperceive their own constituents,
29:34right? Again and again, you see this is
29:36more true on the right, but it's true on
29:37the Democratic side as well.
29:39Uh
29:40legislators misperceive their
29:41constituents as more conservative than
29:43they are, right? And some of that's
29:45about who they talk to. Um
29:46But, in some of it's about the media
29:48environment they live in.
29:49But, there's this persistent problem in
29:51the background. But, you know, I mean,
29:52you know, thinking back to that capital
29:54gains cut in 1978, you know, there's
29:56just this um
29:58this new playbook
30:00that becomes part of our politics, and I
30:02think it's hard for us to even imagine
30:04now
30:05um
30:05that this was ever new. But, I think
30:07that it really it really does speak to
30:11the moment we live in. Now, you're
30:12asking about
30:13um
30:15why it is that there hasn't been a
30:16backlash. I think one important aspect
30:18of that
30:19uh
30:20is that for many, many years, and this
30:22is we are now we are now testing the
30:24limits of this, right? But, for many,
30:25many years, these tax cuts were not paid
30:27for.
30:28>> Right.
30:29>> Right? We just we we paid for it nor
30:31paid for it enormous wars with debt, and
30:33we paid for enormous tax cuts at the top
30:35with debt, right? So, that there was not
30:37a trade-off that the American people
30:39would see right away, right? And this
30:42was, you know, I mean, if you look at
30:43the the uh George W. Bush era, this was
30:45a very conscious strategy, right?
30:47Because in principle, you could have
30:49taken the surpluses of that era and use
30:51them to shore up Social Security or do
30:52any of a number of other things, right?
30:54And you know, if you look at memos
30:55within the Bush administration, it was
30:56very clearly stated that
30:59in going to the voters to cut taxes in
31:01this very regressive way, they had to
31:03say there were no trade-offs at all.
31:05Right. And fiscally, that was
31:08I mean, borrowing the the cost costs of
31:10debt and so forth, there were no
31:12immediate consequences, right? And so, I
31:14think there's a real decline in the
31:18the signals that would have informed
31:21Americans more about the choices that
31:23were being made in their names, right?
31:24Now,
31:25the most recent Trump tax cut is an
31:28exception to that rule. Right?
31:30Um where pretty, you know, where the the
31:32the the big tax cuts going back to to
31:34Reagan's big tax cuts, right? They were
31:35not were were were off books.
31:38Uh this time they've done they've done
31:40quite a lot of retrenchment of major
31:42social safety net programs. Now, they
31:44delayed that. Right? Um but it is coming
31:47now as it as we speak. Uh and I think
31:50it's a question of whether that will be
31:51more
31:52uh evident to people, but I think one
31:54reason they were willing to take that
31:55step in the most recent Trump tax cuts
31:57to also, you know, to make it the most
31:59regressive budget legislation in
32:01history, right? By simultaneously
32:03cutting taxes at the top and um
32:06cutting benefits for for poor people. Um
32:10one reason they were willing to do that
32:11is I think it's another indication that
32:14uh
32:16popularity is no longer a concern. And
32:18frankly, you want popularity to be a
32:20concern for politicians in a democracy.
32:22>> And I think, you know, the this the
32:25budget legislation is a good indication
32:26that um
32:28doing things that are popular in order
32:30to get reelected by a majority of the
32:32voters is not the primary political
32:35strategy of the Republican Party
32:36anymore.
32:37>> Just for our listeners, I mean the the
32:39trade-offs we're talking about now are
32:40that
32:41the one big beautiful bill um
32:44uh
32:45it's big tax cuts very much for people
32:48at the top and offset partially, only
32:51partially, by really savage cuts, but
32:53only to still for to essentially to
32:56means-tested poverty-oriented programs,
32:58to food stamps and Medicaid. Um and I
33:01guess the question is is there's this
33:02kind of cynical calculation that that
33:04most Americans won't care about that or
33:06just a calculation that it doesn't
33:07matter what Americans think.
33:09>> Right. There's the immediate effects
33:11that it'll happen for the for the people
33:12who are affected, but this will have
33:14huge impact on the economy, right? You
33:16know, it that that Medicaid supports uh
33:19health access for poor people. It
33:21supports hospitals in rural area. You
33:23know what I mean? So, like the the the
33:24ramifications are are likely to be
33:27enormous and likely be widely felt
33:28beyond the sort of technical
33:30beneficiaries, for sure. Same with food
33:31stamps, of course.
33:33>> Yeah, I mean the extent to which
33:35actually
33:36the places that voted most strongly for
33:38our current government are exactly the
33:40places where um
33:42uh
33:43you kind of are going to lose critical
33:44mass of purchasing power, critical mass
33:46of of of patients who can afford to pay
33:48their bills at hospitals. And it's
33:50really Yeah, New York City is not going
33:51to run out of
33:53is not going to People are not going to
33:54lose hospitals anywhere close to where
33:56they live in New York City, but they
33:57very much could in West Virginia. So,
33:59Yeah. Um
34:00yeah, see
34:02just come back a bit. The
34:03one thing
34:05We've been in this tax-cutting mode uh
34:08since the late 1970s, but there was
34:11so there was one range of uh
34:14substantial of large tax increases,
34:16which is also during the '80s, which is
34:18the increase in FICA, the um increase in
34:21payments. So,
34:22uh
34:23I think this kind of gets at your
34:25thesis, right? Um
34:27uh but
34:28you'd have a extended riff uh I'm sorry,
34:31I'm being making it too informal, but
34:32you two talk in the book about how how
34:34it is that we came to pay for Social
34:35Security and then later Medicare with
34:37with payroll taxes. And that's that's a
34:40story I think that people should know
34:42and because it's something that comes up
34:43now a lot as we talk about you know,
34:45what we can do at this point,
34:46particularly
34:48um between the the
34:50Social Security funding and then the
34:52general question of health care reform.
34:55>> Right.
34:55>> So how how did that happen? Cuz this is
34:57a this is a regressive tax. I mean, they
35:01yeah, but it's 170,000 or thereabouts is
35:04the maximum. It's flat tax up to that
35:06level and then none above. So why did
35:08FDR do that?
35:09>> Yeah. So it's yeah, it's a tax and it's
35:11a tax on wages, not wealth, right? So
35:13it's on the the income from wealth. So
35:15the Social Security tax is a regressive
35:17tax. It hits most people pretty hard.
35:19It's the biggest tax in fact for most
35:21households,
35:23federal tax. The
35:24So why did why did FDR make this choice?
35:27Well, you have to he's coming into
35:28office in obviously the throes of the
35:31Great Depression. And they're doing a
35:32whole bunch of emergency measures to try
35:35and stabilize the economy to you know,
35:37sort of rescue measures, right? And what
35:40he does not want is his pension plan to
35:45to be seen as a temporary measure. He
35:48wants it to last forever, right? He
35:50wants this to be something that cannot
35:53be retrenched and he wants to
35:54distinguish it from these other
35:57measures, right? And there was a lot of
35:58debate within the administration about
36:00this. Plenty of people within the FDR's
36:01administration were like, "No, this is
36:03not the way to fund this. We need to
36:04fund it differently." But he was
36:06absolutely you know, and FDR was not
36:08always a real policy wonk, frankly. But
36:10on this point he was extremely adamant.
36:12Um
36:13both because he wanted to distinguish
36:16Social Security from the the emergency
36:18anti-poverty measures of the the
36:19Depression and because he knew he could
36:22tell this story to the American people.
36:24And he was always thinking about the how
36:25to how the politics of how you were
36:26going to tell about policy. And so he
36:29knew that he could tell people they were
36:31making a contribution and here was what
36:33you were going to get someday and here
36:34was how it was going to work, right? And
36:36he
36:37knew that he could tell the American
36:38people to contribute to a fund like
36:40this. Um and he was right, right? And so
36:42he famously said that, you know, the
36:44payroll tax contributions that there are
36:45that's not economics, that's just
36:47politics, right? That is to make sure
36:49that no politician can ever eliminate my
36:51Social Security program.
36:53And I you know it to a substantial
36:56degree I think that that political logic
36:58was proven correct, right? The program
37:02not only
37:03survived but grew after
37:05the depression. And
37:07you know, it's funny the business
37:09interests at the time did try and
37:10mobilize against so what they were
37:11really trying to mobilize against his
37:12sort of, you know, tax the rich
37:14rhetoric.
37:15But they were trying you know, in the in
37:16following elections they tried to go
37:18after him on Social Security.
37:20You know, cuz it was like you know, it
37:21was a $1 tax in people's paychecks and
37:23so. And there was a there was a famous
37:25sort of union organizer who said, you
37:28know,
37:29there so there so the so the business
37:30interests put a little basically
37:32propaganda in people's pay stub
37:33envelopes
37:34you know, talking about how if you
37:36reelect Roosevelt
37:37you are condemned to this tax increase
37:40and you know, who knows whether you'll
37:41ever get benefits this kind of a thing.
37:43And this union organizer famously said,
37:45you know, why didn't they put propaganda
37:46in your pay stubs last time? There were
37:48no pay stubs, right? And it was FDR who
37:51was getting us out of the the the
37:52depression, right? So so yeah, that was
37:54how that was how FDR saw the fight. I
37:56think he he you know, it's a political
38:00maneuver of unparalleled perhaps in our
38:02history. And you and that was 100% the
38:05playbook they used for Medicare. They
38:06knew full well what to do
38:08to make a program that would survive.
38:11>> Now what's interesting that's cuz it's
38:13um
38:14I don't know if people realize this but
38:15it's only the
38:16it's only Medicare part A the hospital
38:18insurance part that is is payroll and
38:20the rest is out of general revenue, but
38:22I think in some ways the the aura of
38:25of of the of the
38:28uh
38:29uh
38:29separately funded program kind of
38:31extends to the whole thing even though
38:33a lot of it you know a lot of it now I
38:36shouldn't know the numbers but it it's
38:38is in fact not not paid for by that bit
38:41on your pay stub, but it is
38:43um the um
38:45uh and it is by the way the downside I
38:48guess on in terms of the price of
38:50democracy is that people don't
38:51necessarily think of these as government
38:53programs.
38:54>> People do know about their social
38:56security taxes and they don't think it's
38:57going into a bank account for
38:58themselves. Sometimes there's worry
38:59about that. People do know that it's
39:00going into a general fund it's paying
39:01out today.
39:02Um so people have that much of a sense
39:04about it. They don't always have a full
39:05sense of the totals, right? Um although
39:07they do get at least a little bit of
39:09information on that subject. Um but I I
39:12yeah the
39:13the flip side of protecting and putting
39:15this aura like you as you say uh around
39:18these particular programs, right? Is
39:20does it perhaps
39:22uh implicitly denigrate
39:24other programs? And I think there's a
39:26case to be made for that, right? That
39:28you know here over here are social
39:29security and Medicare the
39:32uh you know contributor funded you know
39:34worthy programs and over there are are
39:37are other uh welfare programs, right?
39:39And those are somehow not as deserving
39:40or not as worthwhile or their
39:42beneficiaries do not deserve. Um and I
39:44do think that's a that's a real um
39:47a real risk of the approach. Yeah.
39:49>> Okay.
39:50>> I I I've always been a little surprised
39:52looking at
39:53um at the record of the Obama years to
39:56see how much actual at least
39:59particularly at particularly at at high
40:01income levels how much he did manage to
40:02raise taxes. That there was a
40:05you know CBO numbers say that the the
40:07effective tax rate on the top 1% under
40:10Obama rose to to pretty close to where
40:13it was pre-Reagan.
40:15Um but
40:16um
40:18we with this is not going to be enough,
40:20right? If we really want to have the
40:21kind of society that a that a a
40:23reasonable, even moderately center-left
40:25person wants,
40:27uh, we're going to need to have So, what
40:29what are the prospects? I mean, are we
40:30still living in this era of tax phobia?
40:32I think you're I think I'm dreading your
40:34answer here.
40:35>> Well,
40:36so I think one thing that's happened is
40:38that the, you know, the the mask really
40:40came off on this, right? I think for
40:43many decades, uh,
40:45being anti-tax was a kind of polite
40:47fiction, a rhetoric you could use to
40:49basically attack the idea that a
40:52democratically elected government could
40:53do good for people, right? But it was
40:55all, you know, so but rather than
40:57directly attack democracy, you what you
40:59would find is conservatives attacking
41:00taxation. And I should say, this is a,
41:02um,
41:03uh, a replication of precisely the
41:06rhetoric that followed the
41:07Reconstruction period, right? The
41:08redeemers, the white supremacists who
41:10come back to power, you know, through
41:12violence and intimidation at the end of
41:13the Reconstruction period, they
41:15organized themselves as taxpayers, using
41:18rhetoric that would look very familiar
41:19to anyone who knew about Reagan's
41:20welfare queen, right? That these
41:22Reconstruction governments were full of
41:23corrupt, untrustworthy, uh, you know,
41:27uh, chiselers of the state, right? And
41:29the poor, burdened, implicitly white
41:31taxpayers were rising up against that,
41:33right? So, it's a very similar rhetoric
41:35to the, uh,
41:36the rhetoric you see in the, uh, in the
41:38aftermath of the second reconstruction
41:40or of the civil rights movement in our
41:41own lifetime. Um,
41:44and so,
41:46I think that to some degree the, um,
41:50the dog whistle aspect of ta- anti-tax
41:53rhetoric has fallen by the wayside as
41:56the the Republican Party has moved to a
41:57very explicitly anti-democratic stance,
42:00right? You know, neglecting, uh, fam-
42:01you know, failing to accept election
42:02results, things of that sort. Um,
42:05And so, uh,
42:07to some degree, I think the tax rhetoric
42:09is actually falling by the wayside, and
42:12the stakes are a lot clearer now. But,
42:15the the problem um
42:19to to my mind is that what we have not
42:21seen You've seen some real movement on
42:24the sort of center-to-left side on all
42:26kinds of things. Uh
42:27you know, sort of rhetorical progress.
42:29Um but a thing that I think is remains
42:32missing is a willingness on the part of
42:35center-to-left wing politicians at a
42:36national level. At a state level, they
42:38have to do this, but at a national
42:39level, to tell people that their
42:40government's worth paying for.
42:42Right? And I think that the sort of
42:45unanswered disparagement of government,
42:48which has, you know, uh been a
42:50consistent part of our politics
42:51throughout my entire lifetime.
42:53Uh that the unanswered disparagement is
42:56the you know, is what paved the way for
42:57things like DOJ, right? Paved the way
42:59for the massive destruction uh that
43:02we've seen in the last 2 years. Um and I
43:04to some degree, I think that destruction
43:05has made the value of government more
43:07evident, right? I think it has made
43:09things like the role of the CDC, the
43:11role of, you know, uh
43:12the fact that we had people, you know,
43:14watching our nuclear silos, all sorts of
43:15things like this become more uh you
43:17know, you know, brought to the forefront
43:19of our minds uh by the DOJ period. But,
43:22um
43:23what I have not seen is
43:26politicians on the sort of
43:27center-to-left side talk seriously about
43:30the idea that the United States
43:32government is worth paying for. It's
43:33worth paying being paid for by all of
43:35us, right? Um and you know, you could
43:37see that with the plans by, for example,
43:39Senator Booker uh and Holland
43:42what you're proposing very, very large
43:43tax cuts for middle-class people and
43:46upper-middle-class people uh to the tune
43:48of hundreds of billions of dollars uh
43:51that we will therefore not have, were
43:53those measures in place, to do the
43:54rebuilding that I think is so absolutely
43:56essential.
43:57>> Yeah, I mean, even uh even something
44:00like uh Mayor Mondani in New York City,
44:03he's saying, "Well, we're going to tax
44:05the
44:06uh
44:07lavish pied-à-terres
44:09held by, you know, non-residents who
44:10have hundred million dollar apartments,
44:12which is fine, but it is saying that
44:15he's still really kind of afraid to go
44:16forward
44:17you know, afraid to do a Willie Sutton
44:19and go where the money is.
44:21>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's
44:23you know, to me it really it it's hard
44:25because people want you to say it has to
44:27be one or the other, right? They want
44:28you to say either you want the
44:30progressive rates at the very top and I
44:31think we there's no way around that as
44:34an approach to reducing income
44:35inequality, wealth inequality in this
44:37country because the level I'll tell you
44:39I'll tell you a story.
44:40Um
44:41the
44:42Tom Tom Paine, I talked about this in
44:44the book.
44:45The guy who wrote Common Sense.
44:47You know, who who said famously that
44:50the United States did not need to have a
44:51king.
44:54He wrote a few years later The Rights of
44:56Man, which is a defense of the French
44:57Revolution and in it he includes a tax
44:59plan.
45:00Because he was worried about the
45:01possibility of extreme wealth corrupting
45:03elections.
45:04And this is a
45:06tax plan where he is applying it to the
45:07income from wealth and the top rate of
45:09that tax plan proposed by Thomas Paine
45:11in 1791 is 100%
45:14>> Okay.
45:15>> He imagined that there should be a limit
45:17to wealth.
45:18You know, far above any level that any
45:21as he explicitly says any level that you
45:22could possibly need to support a family,
45:24any amount that you could conceivably
45:25earn through your own effort, but he
45:27thought that there was a level of
45:29consolidation and here he's thinking
45:30about the wealth of the lords in early
45:33England. There's a level of wealth that
45:34can endanger the republic. Right? And so
45:37there's actually a very long tradition
45:39in American politics of very, very
45:41progressive tax plans.
45:43But then and I think that is an
45:45important part of looking at how we need
45:46to think about the future. But at the
45:47same time we need to think about revenue
45:49and we need to think about money that
45:50will be available in perpetuity and we
45:52need to
45:53you know, come back to that old idea
45:55that this is our government and that's
45:57why we pay for it.
45:59>> Okay. And
46:01so how long till we get a value added
46:02tax in America?
46:03>> Well, I'm right there with you.
46:06>> Yeah.
46:06>> [laughter]
46:08>> I think it's about seven economists
46:09behind the banner.
46:11>> Yeah. Okay, well,
46:14this is great. The historical
46:16perspective I find is is more and more
46:18important to you and [music] you can't
46:19understand where we are
46:21without looking back and
46:23look forward with a little bit of
46:24trepidation but maybe a bit of hope.
46:27Well,
46:27thanks for talking to me.
46:29>> Well, thank you so much. This was a lot
46:30of fun.

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