Episode Overview

Podcast: New Books Network – New Books in Public Policy
Host: Ursula Hackett
Guest: Professor Andrea Louise Campbell (MIT)
Book: Taxation and Resentment: Race, Party, and Class in American Tax Attitudes (Princeton University Press, 2025)
Release Date: September 10, 2025

This episode explores Professor Andrea Campbell’s groundbreaking book, which investigates the complex and often contradictory attitudes Americans hold toward taxation. Using both historical context and original survey data, Campbell examines how race, partisanship, class, and perceptions of fairness intersect to shape opinions about federal, state, and local taxes—including income, sales, estate, and payroll taxes. The discussion gives special attention to the unique perspectives of Black and Hispanic taxpayers, the role of racial resentment and ideology, and how deeply American individualism, political messaging, and experience with government inform tax politics today.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Evolution of the American Tax System

[03:50 – 05:16]

• Historical context: Before the 20th century, federal revenues mainly came from tariffs; local and state governments relied on property taxes.
• The modern apparatus (income, estate, payroll, sales taxes) took shape from 1913 onwards.
• Absence of VAT: U.S. individualism, smaller public sector, and a lack of robust welfare state meant there was "never sort of a need for a new source of revenue, especially not a robust one like a consumption tax." (Campbell, 05:35)
• Early progressive ambitions: The 1913 income tax was predicated on taxing ability to pay, specifically targeting the rising fortunes of industrialists.

2. The Decline of Progressivity

[08:04 – 11:46]

• Early income tax: "Only the top decile... paid it."
• Gradual erosion via two main channels:
  • Rate cuts: Especially stark in the Reagan era ("the top marginal rate had been 70% and Ronald Reagan reduced that to 28%")
  • Tax breaks: Proliferation of deductions, credits, exclusions.
• Campbell emphasizes that “the overall value of these tax breaks... disproportionately goes to the top 10%, the top 1%.”
• As a result, “our tax system, when you combine... every level of government is almost flat.”

3. Abstract Preference vs. Practical Attitudes

[11:46 – 14:11]

• Americans overwhelmingly endorse progressive taxation in theory.
• Yet, paradoxically, “the taxes they dislike the most and most want to see decreased are the progressive taxes... the ones that cost them less," while regressive taxes (like sales tax, which "cost[s] them more as a share of income") are less objectionable.
• “Americans’ tax attitudes are upside down in two respects: their individual tax attitudes don’t match up with their abstract preferences, nor do they match up with their self interest.” (Campbell, 12:32)

4. Concepts of Proportionality, Fairness, and Ideology

[14:11 – 18:47]

• Notions of fairness are “always in the eye of the beholder.” (Campbell, 15:30)
• Many Americans, especially Republicans, see proportional taxes as fair since “everyone pays the same.”
• There is strong resentment that "some pay nothing," particularly with the income tax’s exemption of low earners.
• Preference for sales tax derives from both its universality and its "flatness," but also from the cognitive simplicity: “complications of math” make it difficult for people to assess the true burden of taxes as a share of income.

5. The Appeal of Sales Taxes and Perceived Control

[19:48 – 22:10]

• Sales tax is praised because “the rich can’t manipulate that share... there’s no loopholes to not pay. Everyone bumps into it.” (Hackett, 20:26)
• Yet it’s also seen as “very controllable—don’t want to pay, don’t buy the item.”
• Campbell notes, “Many taxes feel uncontrollable... whereas people feel that with the sales tax they have choice.”

6. Visibility and the Social Security Payroll Tax

[22:10 – 25:33]

• The payroll tax is felt to be less unfair since "people ultimately expect to get back what they put in."
• The Social Security relationship is deeply ingrained: “That relationship with tax dollars being associated with a visible benefit is most apparent with the payroll tax.” (Campbell, 23:06)
• Most Americans pay more in payroll than income tax but accept payroll taxes owing to perceived future payoff.

7. Tax Expenditures (“Tax Breaks”) and Public Perceptions

[25:33 – 30:58]

• The U.S. forgoes nearly as much federal revenue through tax breaks as it collects via the income tax.
• Many “do not recognize tax expenditures as a government benefit... but they do recognize when others are getting them.”
• Campbell finds “their attitudes toward these breaks... roughly mirror their attitudes towards direct spending programs.”
• Racial resentment is a critical predictor: whites with high racial resentment want to see both progressive taxes and tax breaks for the poor cut.

8. The Role of Racial Resentment, Partisanship, and Political Messaging

[30:58 – 37:33]

• Racial resentment strongly predicts opposition to progressive taxes and support for cutting benefits for the poor.
• Partisanship does matter, but is situational: “Republicans... are only more likely than Democrats to say my federal income taxes are too high when there’s a Democratic president.”
• Independents: “Particularly anti tax... even more likely than Republicans... to say that [any tax] is unfair.” (Hackett, 35:01)

9. The Estate Tax Puzzle

[37:33 – 43:22]

• Despite its narrow reach, the estate tax is the “most hated by normal Americans.”
• Explanations:
  • Americans see wealth as earned, already taxed income—it feels unfair to tax it again.
  • Strong desire to leave wealth to children.
  • Political messaging about family farms and small businesses (coded white) being forced out by the estate tax.
  • Racial resentment: suspicion estate tax funds will support minorities—“those programs are perceived as disproportionately going to non-whites... especially unfair.”

10. Racialization of Tax and Financial Policy

[43:22 – 47:58]

• Campbell relates her findings to broader literature on credit, bankruptcy, and the role of race in American political development.
• Many mechanisms through which access to relief, benefits, and fair taxation are racialized.

11. Distinctive Attitudes Among Black and Hispanic Taxpayers

[47:58 – 54:33]

• Important finding: Black and Latino Americans are more likely to regard nearly every tax as unfair, and to support tax cuts even more than white Republicans.
• "It's not that I think there's self interest per se... it's that black Americans have often suffered from a coercive state... might be more suspicious of when the tax man comes around." (Campbell, 54:15)
• Systematic over-taxation is both intentional (property tax assessments, foreclosure practices) and unintentional (less access to untaxed employer benefits).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On American aversion to VAT and social protection:
  “In the US, we never get those extensive social protections in part because of our fraught racial history. So there was never sort of a need for a new source of revenue, especially not a robust one like a consumption tax.”
  — Campbell, 05:35

• On the erosion of progressivity:
  “Both the reduction of the rates and the introduction of all these breaks means that the effective rate of taxation has fallen at the high end... [the] system is almost flat.”
  — Campbell, 11:46

• On the paradox of tax attitudes:
  “Americans’ tax attitudes are upside down in two respects: their individual tax attitudes don’t match up with their abstract preferences, nor do they match up with their self interest.”
  — Campbell, 12:32

• On fairness and proportionality:
  “Fairness is always in the eye of the beholder... Many of my survey respondents, especially Republicans... feel that everyone should pay something.”
  — Campbell, 15:30

• On racial resentment and tax politics:
  “Racial resentment is a very strong predictor of all three of the phenomena that I look at: tax attitudes, spending attitudes, and tax break or indirect spending attitudes.”
  — Campbell, 30:58

• On independents as anti-tax:
  “Political independents, those who don't affiliate with either [party], are particularly anti tax. So that's quite interesting... they are the proverbial swing voters.”
  — Campbell, 31:16

• On estate tax animosity:
  “Even amongst those for whom all of those things are true... two thirds or something... say that we should repeal estate taxes. Tell us about this opposition. Where does it come from? Why do people hate a tax that basically nobody pays?”
  — Hackett, 38:49

• On Black taxpayer attitudes:
  “Black and Latino Americans are more likely than white Americans to say these taxes, every, basically every tax is unfair. And they're more likely to say these taxes should be decreased... in some instances, black Americans are more likely to say taxes should be decreased than white Republicans, which... is extraordinary.”
  — Campbell, 48:16

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:50 | History and development of American tax system | | 05:35 | Why the US never adopted a VAT and its implications | | 08:04 | Erosion of progressivity and the influence of wealthy taxpayers | | 11:46 | The “upside down” paradox: abstract vs. concrete tax preferences | | 14:11 | Fairness, proportionality, and partisan/ideological lenses | | 19:48 | Why Americans see sales tax as both fair and controllable | | 22:10 | Visibility of tax benefits, especially payroll/social security taxes | | 25:33 | The massive “tax expenditure” (tax break) system and public perceptions | | 30:58 | Racial resentment, partisanship, and the complexity of tax attitudes | | 31:16 | Independents’ anti-tax attitudes and the misperceptions shaping policy | | 37:33 | The puzzle of estate tax hatred | | 43:22 | Racial coding of financial relief, the politics of deservingness, and related literature | | 47:58 | Distinctive experiences and attitudes of Black and Hispanic taxpayers | | 54:54 | Future research directions and the legacy of senior citizen benefits |

Conclusion and Future Directions

• Campbell urges new research on Black and Latino tax attitudes: "That’s just untilled territory that, that needs more work.” [54:54]
• Her next project will focus on how policy has made senior citizens “super-participators” in democracy, and how social protection for the elderly is now eroding.

Listen if you want:

• A fresh, data-driven take on why Americans so passionately argue about taxes.
• To understand the deep roots—historical, racial, and political—of popular tax resentments (and confusions).
• Insight into why people defend taxes that hurt them, resent taxes that help them, and how experiences of race and government deeply structure these beliefs.