Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes

The social welfare system in the United States cannot be fully understood without also considering the tax system. Tax revenues fund redistributive programs and publicly supported social services. Who gets taxed, for what reasons, and at what rates shapes the distribution of economic resources. The tax system incorporates important cash transfer programs. With respect to those with low incomes, for example, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is now a far larger program, both by participation rates and federal expenditures, than Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (“welfare”). The tax system, then, deserves careful attention from social workers. Political scientist Vanessa Williamson’s Read My Lips: Why Americans Are Proud to Pay Taxes is an important addition to the literature on the politics of tax policy in the United States. It offers insights that social welfare professionals and researchers will find both pleasantly surprising and deeply troubling. Williamson’s central purpose is to understand Americans’ attitudes toward tax policy. The dominant narrative around taxation in the United States is one of hostility. It is widely assumed—and reinforced through media framing and political campaign rhetoric—that the typical person in the United States abhors taxes in all forms. These impressions are largely superficial, however, and Williamson uses qualitative data from in-depth interviews and open-ended survey questions, supplemented with quantitative opinion survey analysis, to better understand tax attitudes. Her central finding is that Americans, even those who lean to the political right, actually feel positively about paying taxes. They consider it a civic obligation, and contributing to the greater good is a source of pride. Further investigation, however, reveals severe limits to this sense of collective responsibility.