I im just so happy that about a year ago we were joined at the brookings institutions and the promptly produced this great book having been here for a short time. I will go through the former the formal intro. Vanessa has written two books and coauthored the first. The first one is called the tea party and the remaking of american conservatism. It shows a very strong conviction but in her Tea Party Book she showed an enormous capacity people she profoundly this a grease with. Just to tell you how we are going to do this vanessa will come and talk about this great book in her finance i will introduce a pair of respondents. And then we will bring you all into the conversation. She is a coauthor of the tea party. It was named one of the ten best political books of the year. She is also examining the political origins. She has testified before congress she is written from friday a publications not only the New York Times and the atlantic but also teen vogue and also her hometown newspaper the sacramento bee. She has been cited all over the place by economist. She received her phd in government and social policy from harvard university. She has a masters degree from the institute of french studies. She will do a side lecture. I love having you as a colleague vanessa and congratulations on the book. [applause]. Thank you. My goal today is to convince you that american see tax pain is something to be proud of. Ive studied this for six years. I watch what people do when they vote. And in america to pay taxes is something almost universally understood as a civic duty and a moral obligation. In this political moment ive set myself a difficult task in committing you of this. They describe tax avoidance is a smart choice. We will see major tax reform policy. They were aimed at the wealthiest among us. They had struggled with major budget shortfalls. In this context how can it be that americans are proud to pay taxes. Are we in fact and nation having to drowned the government in a bathtub. I dont want to discount the views of conservative americans. It was actually at a tea party rally that the question i try to answer in this book first occurred to me. I know how common it wasnt to describe it. At the end of the sentence was almost never about taxes. It was about the right to be heard. In america even for the conservative americans using it as a shorthand for being could you didnt citizen who has earned in this country and has earned representation by the government. In seen taxpayers commitment to community and country they are in fact a part of a very long tradition. Into demonstrate the worthiness of citizens. Common pain said all accumulation beyond what a mans own hands produce is derived to him by living in society. In the oath on every principle of justice apart to that. So the responsibility of tax pain comes from the fact that we are in the society indebted to one another. And the fact that we pay with those debts would pay our taxes is the reason we have the right to be represented by our government. The National WomensRights Convention ask and now holds a vast amount of property. On what principle then do you deny her representation. That link between taxation and representation is not something other revolutionary war. It continues in our politics today. In 1959 africanamerican activists integrated the beaches in miami. They brought with them to the short they brought with them their property tax receipts. Because it showed that they have paid to maintain those beaches. It belonged to them like everyone else. It showed that they have paid their share. They have the have the receipts to prove it. They played an important part in the rhetoric. But it is also how average americans think about tax pain. For 40 years the ask whether they see it as a responsibility and for decades they have held pretty constant view of that. A Common Survey question is whether its every american civic duty to pay their fair share of taxes. About 5 disagree. I should put that in context. At about 6 of americans think that the moon landing was there. And these are views that americans are holding strongly. I was surprised and i would get these i remember a marine from california so when i say the word tax with you what does that make you think about. He said the cost of being an american. Hed paid in a much more concrete way another person i spoke to she was a democrat from florida. Ive been interviewing it because i want to write a book about american attitudes. She said i just want to remind everybody that no man is an island. Were all in this together. It wasnt just democrats are independents who said things like that. When ask him so how do you feel when youre filling out your income tax forms he said i feel like im doing my part. What is interesting as its not is its not that americans have the nice words to say theyre putting their money where their mouth is. Americans ever rule a remarkably committed tax payers. They pay their taxes honestly and on time. And economists think at rates higher than can be explained by our enforcement mechanisms. It is a social norm that we share if everyone else is chipping and i should do my part two. So even when actually comes to putting their money on the table americans are good at being taxpayers. So they see it as a civic response ability. Here is another surprising truth. They vote for tax increases. About the a half a seats have a mechanism in those the states over the last 15 years its pretty common to put a tax increase on the ballot. Voters are voting to raise their own taxes and its not just one kind of tax. They are raising sales taxes and progressive taxes. If americans see tax paid as a Civic Responsibility why is taxation such a controversy in this country. In short i think the answer is been crowned is not the same as being happy. Only 7 of people say the amount that they personally pay. Theyre not bothered very much by any taxes. Only 7 of people think thats the big problem. Either the wealthy or corporations not paying their share as their number one concern about taxes in this country. Another 4 of people say their worst concerned that poor people are paying their share. If we see tax pain is as a civic duty that we all share is something that is so important to who we are and being a contributor person of course were angry when we think some is not doing their part. It is not easy to know how much other people are paying in taxes for instance its pretty common that they have missed perception about the tax code. This was a statistic that suggested that its exactly right. About 47 percent of households either got back more money than the patent or ended up at zero. This is how it was remembered and repeated. And yet this false version have a pretty big impact a few years ago. People are misunderstood and how tax responsibilities are distributed. Its very common for people to believe that the immigrants are not paying their fair share of taxes. They represent longstanding stereotypes in as we all remember from things like the welfare queen. We know that they dont work in this country. Unfortunately that travels directly through to today. Who really pay taxes. The second part of my bucket talks a lot about the limits of our community. About the amount of taxes paid by the poor. Its where all of the tax money was going. Ill be happy to talk to all of those things. They often have misinformation about policy. It means that they are hard to take those. I want to leave you with a different question. If i wanted convince you. As patriotic and something we must all do. I want you to take a minute about why it is that we do not see those attitudes defecated here in our government in washington. Thank you. [applause]. I would like our panelists to come up. And join me. I just want to say things. I just want to read the first paragraph of vanessas book. Its only 182 while written pages. The first paragraph is as follows. When i tell people i study American Opinion about taxation the reactions are predictable. It usually passes across the face of my inter locket are. Second, he or she informs me that they hate taxes. Or they prefer to be self sufficient. For one reason or another they just do not want to pay the limits of bill. I also want to have special greetings from a Dear Colleague of ours who many years ago wanted to form an Organization Called willing taxpayers of america. When he heard about the event today. I will introduce heather and frank and then im going to ask a broad question to open to each of them to give them a chance to respond to vanessa and her book. The executive director and the chief economist. They focus on economic and quality. Specifically employment social policy. Her latest book is finding time. The economics of worklife conflict. She writes for the New York Times as a room for the debate feature. She previously served as chief economist for Hillary ClintonTransition Team as well as at the center for american progress. The center for economic and policy research and the policy institute. Frank is the executive director for tax fairness. He helped found the organization in 2012. The coalition of the 320 organizations prior to that he managed Healthcare Campaign for the Communications Union of america. In support of the Affordable Care act. He has also been senior policy advisor to the government. Here are a book edited keep hope alive a book about that campaign. Let me just start by asking a broad question. What you tell us a bit about what you learned from vanessas book as to what this tells us about an inequality in its relationship with taxation there was an important lesson he learned from vanessa and i cant wait for him to tell us what it is. When you start heather. Thank you for writing such a great book. I will just take would just take a moment to do one small brag on her which they have a grant giving opportunity. We could not be more excited that we were able to support this research that is so important for the questions around equitable growth. For me there were a couple things that were really were really striking in the book. The first was you talked a little bit in your marks that this idea that people feel that pain taxes is a civic duty. That they think that it should be fair and it definitely can be in qualitative work. This probably what makes the most sense in terms of air. The next step which i think is hard for folks to really connect the dots between is how the fairness of the tax system isnt just about the fairness of whether or not you are paying your fair share versus me but what it is that were paying for. And so one place i would like to take these ideas that you work on in your book how to make it for people and policymakers. We ended your remarks with this idea that misinformation means that its hard to connect policy is definitely more difficult to connect policy back to values. The way that our tax system is structured actually enhances and does not promote growth in a way that can have an effect on how people feel about whether or not the tax system is fair. Someone that we work with a lot is a manual acai is. With his coauthors they have done some research looking at whether or not there is room to increase taxes at the top of the Income Distribution which overtime we have seen the marginal tax rate at the very top of the tube about 70 in the 1960s to less than 40 at the very top. You see that rates are falling for families at the top. Yet theres economic evidence that there is a lot of room to actually increase rates that they not only promote fairness but economic growth. We been told a story that we need to keep taxes low at the top. The that increases investment in labor supply. The basic argument that we hear a lot up. At the same time. The tax rate at the top there are other factors. Is not just the labor supply question. Whether or not you are using labor income. And whether not actually change behavior. Is that the most important factor in having those. As it changes the incentives to have higher salaries. It creates a greater incentive they get to keep more of it. Now that is a comp located little story there to figure how to connect the dots between that sense of fairness in terms of that we want the tax system. Its only fair but its doing right by their community and the way and that we been talking about taxes especially at the top it sometime about fairness but its also about growth. How do we work to change that. How do we work to change that. Im so glad you focus focused on that. Im tired of the argument we have. I dont know where they get there. I will ask couple of questions. Im good to ask about a certain skepticism that i have a hunch exists in the world of Political Consultants about your thesis. For the last five years when we create to determine our name in the name of our organization we did a whole bunch of focus groups as we started out. What came through a lot of clear was what the public about that it was grossly unfair. Prior to Elizabeth Warren running martin running for president. Everybody felt like the system was rigged. When she was running from senate. We remember that first speech. The room was packed and she was talking about the rigged system. We put in front of the focus group. And tested out the feeling about the unfairness of the system pervades the culture. Its on both sides. Its White Bernie Sanders does well. From our point of view i think its very profound and helpful i think the obvious findings was a little bit shocking to me only because i have not done that. When text a comes around every year. It was part of a tax march. We will actually well actually writing principles for the tax march. I get into the whole thing of mine around civic duty. At the time of year is a common good. But it is a language that i have not been using. We have not used it in our advocacy worked. The reason it was important to hear this for me was because it is a place of Common Ground i think between people of different ideologies. So much of the text the bait is about the role of government. And what is your relationship to the government. What you think the government ought to be doing for you for communities. But then a in a lightbulb change for me if we do have that kind of Common Ground it says a lot about how far we got away from that place and how this used to be united around the Common Ground whether you are democrat or republican. They have the tierney of theology on taxes and government. And we cant get through that to get to that place of Common Ground that you found is where the public is. Its our Education Program in our work to remind people that we are in this together. Because of what it means for us. We need to do more of that. I want to thank you for writing this book for another reason. It was falling on april 15 and i couldnt resist writing a column under that headline. On april 15. If you support our men and women in uniform you have to support the men and women of the irs. Hes really on them. Two questions the question and that we talked about. He said about half the time tax increases when and have the time they lose. In what circumstances do they stand to win. Is it random. Theres probably some particular aspect. Youre not old enough to remember but i am that Walter Mondale promised to raise taxes. I know very few Political Consultants who suggest who their candidates that they go on tell voters im going to raise your taxes. What is wrong with that analysis in light of your finance i think that is such an important question. On the question of when they vote for tax increase. Elections happen overtime. Its hard to unpack this. The tax increases do that. It seems very straightforward. Arizona pay more to get nothing extra. They would prefer to understand where the money thats been raised is good to go. When they are funding things that people really like. They are things that are most popular. Of course public safety. These are all issues that people think that patrons should pay for. That is a real take away in terms of when they do well. We make sure they know what theyre getting in return. Its actually related to the first. I told you about how tax measures have been doing the last 15 years. That is a striking change from the era of people like montel. It has been a very steady increase over time. About one in five tax to the ballot box. Its been very up and down. What has changed is a success rate. The probably doing a better job of what thats can pay for. We are trapped by a political moment that happened there. We remember this era and the proposition 13 and that kept it with property taxes in the state. It continues to win on what they have done today. Because its a very salient memory from the 1970s i think people sometimes forget given the fact that we got from one in five to one and two of these measures. It might be the case that we need to reexamine what tax attitudes are. And that is the advent of the reagan revolution. See mike one Empirical Research sort of related in midterm elections we documented as much as we could add that was run in the congressional races what we found was shocking to me they usually think about he wants to be the big taxi spenders. It represents where the public is on the system. Especially an off shoring issue. They are shipping jobs in shipping the profits offshore. They feel very deeply about that. That was the first time i saw where democrats were running full speed ahead. Always criticize. They have their hands tied behind their back. They have a lot of them to have the taxing corporations. Both parties were in the game. Think we cant quite achieve of the policy changes. I dont believe there is a link. I just wanted to point out what the result was. I was just can add to that that that debate is made even more, get it of course because middleclass families had have a raise in so long. When you see this growing disconnect between productivity and wages and incomes. We very quickly we set us in the early 2000s have a lot of what im watching for the spring. With the sheen of the small tax cut. On top of a very large tax cut those at the top. For them to not acknowledge the very real struggles that the middle class is having. It makes it a little bit hard for those who say we want to have a more prog