Newsweek: Why Obama Finally Took on the 1%
media mentionA sweeping attack on wealth inequality might have had more than an icicle’s chance in hell of passing back when Democrats had control of Congress. But Matt Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit, says the administration did push to raise capital gains—every year—without success. It was a lost cause in the larger, howling fight over repealing the Bush tax cuts.
“It’s hard to remember this now, but for much of the decade after 2001, the sole focus of the federal tax policy debates was what to do about the Bush tax cuts,” Gardner says. “There was this never ending battle over this one issue, so you didn’t hear people talking about corporate tax reform or carried interest.”