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Articles by Michael Graetz
Economics Professor Owen Zidar Shows How Wealth Shapes Policy
The conversation about wealth in America is monopolized by billionaires. But economics professors Owen Zidar of Princeton and Eric Zwick of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business argue that a hidden class of ordinary Americans who got extraordinarily wealthy running private businesses is the larger story, for both the American Dream and American inequality.
Antitax Nation
Antitax Nation Published April 20, 2024 The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America By Michael J. Graetz When Ronald Reagan accepted the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he presented himself as a tax magician. “We are taxing ourselves into economic exhaustion and stagnation,” he said before making a tantalizing promise. He would slash income tax rates by 30 percent over three years.
Antitax Nation
Antitax Nation Published April 7, 2024 This article appears in the April 2024 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here. The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America By Michael J. Graetz Princeton University Press When Ronald Reagan accepted the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, he presented himself as a tax magician. “We are taxing ourselves into economic exhaustion and stagnation,” he said before making a tantalizing promise.
When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown
Kenan Thompson, with Dibs Baer. Harper, $29.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-06-334806-6 Saturday Night Live actor Thompson reflects on his family life and storied career in this rib-tickling debut memoir-in-essays. He begins with his childhood in Georgia, attributing to his tight-knit family his own eventual status as a “softie” dad to his two young daughters.
Imagination: A Manifesto
Ruha Benjamin. Norton, $22 (192p) ISBN 978-1-324-02097-4 Benjamin (Viral Justice) posits in this wide-ranging treatise that “collective imagination” will be a key force behind the creation of an emerging new social order.
A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging
A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging Journalist Markham (The Far Away Brothers) blends memoir, history, and reportage in a wide-ranging and unflinching account of Moria, an overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos that burned to the ground in September 2020.
The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary
Andrew Drummond. Verso, $34.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-839-76894-1 Historian Drummond (A Quite Impossible Proposal) offers an expansive biography of Thomas Müntzer (1489–1525), a radical figure of the German Reformation whom Martin Luther once called “Satan, a ravening wolf, and a false prophet.” Though Müntzer is generally seen as a marginal character, Drummond paints him as the protagonist of an even more extreme revolution within the Reformation.
The Shortest History of Sex: Two Billion Years of Procreation and Recreation
David Baker. The Experiment, $16.95 trade paper (336p) ISBN 978-1-891-01134-4 In this amusing romp, science historian Baker (The Shortest History of the Universe) uses sex-themed irreverence to lure casual readers into learning about the evolution of Homo sapiens from early rudimentary organisms into modern humans.
Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold On to What Matters
Charan Ranganath. Doubleday, $30 (304p) ISBN 978-0-385-54863-2 Ranganath, a psychology professor at the University of California Davis, debuts with a riveting overview of how memory works. He explains that the prefrontal cortex helps coordinate brain activity and direct attention, influencing what details are remembered or forgotten, and that the hippocampus enables recall by reactivating the neuronal connections that were active at the moment a memory formed.
Otter Country: An Unexpected Adventure in the Natural World
Miriam Darlington. Tin House, $27.95 (368p) ISBN 978-1-959030-34-8 Darlington (The Wise Hours) burnishes her reputation as a gifted nature writer with this vivid examination of the behavior, biology, and evolution of otters. She notes that the aquatic animals were “one of the earliest mammalian carnivores,” appearing 30 million years ago as members of the mustelid family, which includes weasels and badgers.
Dinner on Monster Island: Essays
In this poignant memoir-in-essays, De Rozario (And the Walls Come Crumbling Down) intertwines stories about growing up queer and brown in Singapore with her analysis of her favorite horror films. “It took me years to realize that perhaps the reason I love horror is the fact that when I was twelve years old, I was subjected to it,” she writes, recounting how her mother, who viewed De Rozario’s boyish behavior as deviant, enlisted church friends to “gay-exorcise” her daughter.
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo. Knopf, $30 (272p) ISBN 978-0-593-53444-1 Historian Guelzo (Robert E. Lee) plumbs the depths of Abraham Lincoln’s passion for American democracy in this combative study that seeks to silence the institution’s “cultured despisers” by illuminating the president’s eloquent defense of it (he called democracy his “ancient faith”).
Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York
Strong Passions: A Scandalous Divorce in Old New York Historian Weisberg (Talking to the Dead) digs through newspaper archives and legal libraries to deliver this captivating chronicle of a high-society scandal that riveted the nation during the final years of the Civil War. In a highly emotional state after the death of their third child in 1862, New York City socialite Mary Strong confessed to her husband, Peter, that she’d been having an affair with his brother.
The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster
John O’Connor. Sourcebooks, $26.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4642-1663-3 What does it mean that so many Americans believe a large ape-like creature roams the country’s forests? Journalist O’Connor attempts to answer this question in an amusing and thoughtful debut that focuses on “bigfooters” as much as on the legendary beast itself.
The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the ‘Village Voice,’ the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture by Tricia Romano
Tricia Romano. PublicAffairs, $35 (608p) ISBN 978-1-5417-3639-9 Former Village Voice nightlife columnist Romano debuts with a phenomenal oral history of the alternative weekly from its founding in 1955 through the 2018 shutdown of editorial operations. Drawing on more than 200 interviews with Voice personnel, Romano explores the many vibrant personalities, colorful stories, and heated disputes that defined the publication.
The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (and How I Got Out)
Tina Nguyen. One Signal, $28 (272p) ISBN 978-1-9821-8969-3 A journalist revisits her youthful dalliance with and later disaffection from the conservative movement in this entertaining and insightful debut.
Napoleon: A Life Told in Gardens and Shadows
Historian Scurr (Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution) spotlights Napoleon Bonaparte’s lifelong preoccupation with gardens and gardening in this unusual and perceptive biography. She takes note of the plot of land at boarding school that Napoleon turned into a private retreat, and describes how a doomed mulberry nursery, intended to be partially funded by the government, nearly bankrupted his family after his father’s death and fueled his own frustration with the monarchy.
The Best American Travel Writing 2020
Macfarlane opens this provocative but unfortunately timed entry in the long-running series with a sobering message: “I write from a world in which travel has stopped.” Indeed, readers may feel a jarring sense of dissonance delving into suddenly anachronistic essays on unfettered travel, though they often are framed with still-relevant political conscience. Kyle Chayka probes what it means to have an “authentic” experience in Iceland, where tourists outnumbered inhabitants.
Inverted Thinking on Corporate Taxes
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew must have loved the children's classic "Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates"—and perhaps even believed it, especially the story of a Dutch boy who saves his nation by putting his finger in a leaking dike. That appears to be the Obama administration's approach to tax policy. In a letter to Congress on Tuesday, Mr. Lew called on lawmakers to stop U.S. corporations from merging with foreign corporations and locating the parent company abroad to reduce their taxes.
Unemployment insurance is broken: How to fix it
Crucial unemployment benefits have expired. And Congress is badly split over how to respond. President Trump has tried to buy some time by diverting federal emergency funds to pay up to $400 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits. If his gambit works at all, the money will run out in about six weeks.
The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth" by Michael J. Graetz and Ian Shapiro
Title Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight Over Taxing Inherited Wealth Authors Michael J. Graetz, Columbia Law SchoolFollow Ian Shapiro, Yale UniversityFollow Description This fast-paced book by Yale professors Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro unravels the following mystery: How is it that the estate tax, which has been on the books continuously since 1916 and is paid by only the wealthiest two percent of Americans, was repealed in 2001 with broad bipartisan support?
Opinion | The Severability Doctrine
THE Obama administration has made a curious strategic choice in its defense of the constitutionality of the health care reform act. The central issue before the Supreme Court, which will begin hearing oral arguments on Monday, is whether the act’s requirement that everyone buy health insurance — the so-called individual mandate — exceeds Congress’s constitutional power.
Opinion | The Mysteries of Mitt Romney’s Financial Records
With an I.R.A. account of $20 million to $101 million, the tax savings would be more than a few pennies. The I.R.A. also allows Mr. Romney to diversify his large holdings tax-free, avoiding the 15 percent tax on capital gains that would otherwise apply. His financial disclosure further reveals that his I.R.A. freed him from paying currently the 35 percent income tax on hundreds of thousands of dollars of interest income each year.
The Social Meaning of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
abstract. This Essay exposes the moral messages implicit in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). It argues that the legislation reflects values that were not openly debated or discussed in the legislative process, but are crucial to the distributional effects of the law.
A Tax Overhaul Would Be Great in Theory. Here’s Why It’s So Hard in Practice.
But that is not what happened. Instead, lawmakers took what seemed to be a logical approach: They focused on taxing businesses on their profits. Today, that choice shapes arrangements in every corner of the economy. It affects the values of currencies and financial assets. Every business has devised its structure and organization to maximize its advantage within the existing system.
Opinion | Trump Probably Avoided His Medicare Taxes, Too
In the final debate, Hillary Clinton said she would secure Social Security and Medicare by raising taxes on high-income earners, including herself and her opponent, Donald J. Trump, “assuming he can’t figure out how to get out of it.” As we’ve learned in the past few weeks, Mr. Trump has used all kinds of extravagant maneuvers to get out of paying taxes. Without Mr. Trump’s returns, we can’t know for certain whether he figured out a way to get out of paying into Medicare and Social Security.
Imaging Analytics: The First Step to Personalized Medicine
Across the healthcare industry, there is a rising demand for personalized medicine, including the desire to have better access, visibility and insight into patient records. Everyone in the ecosystem – patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers – are interested in the benefits that could be achieved, but with so many compliance and technical challenges to address, where is the best place to start? The answer lies in medical imagery.
Tracing The 'Rise Of The Judicial Right' To Warren Burger's Supreme Court
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. One of the things at stake in this presidential election is the future direction of the Supreme Court. Since the death of Justice Scalia, the court has had only eight justices and has sometimes been stalemated 4-4. Assuming Congress continues to block President Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland, the next president will have at least one justice to appoint to the court, and that is likely to tip the balance.
Should the U.S. adopt a value-added tax?
In discussions about changing the U.S. tax system, one topic almost always arises: the possibility of adopting a value-added tax. After all, most of the industrialized world uses a VAT — which is not to say they all like it. Unlike a traditional sales tax, a VAT is a levy on consumption that taxes the value added to a product or service by businesses at each point in the chain of production.
Behind the European Raid on McDonald’s
On Thursday the European Commission announced an investigation of McDonald’s for allegedly illegal behavior. This follows decisions in late October that FiatChrysler and Starbucks would each be assessed 20 million-30 million euros ($21.2 million-$31.8 million). The EC (the European Union’s executive arm) has announced similar investigations of Amazon and Apple, which are expected to result in much larger assessments. These companies’ offenses?
100 Million Unnecessary Returns
A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States; With a New Introduction To most Americans, the United States tax code has become a vast and confounding puzzle. In 1940, the instructions to the form 1040 were about four pages long. Today they have ballooned to more than a hundred pages, and the form itself contains more than ten schedules and twenty worksheets. The complete tax code totals about 2.8 million words—about four times the length of War and Peace.
In Memory of Andy McCabe - EMEA Healthcare CTO
I attended the funeral ceremony for Andy McCabe, EMEA Healthcare CTO, Enterprise Content Division, EMC, yesterday together with Yves Mahieu and John Gurnett. Andy passed away at the age of 52, after being diagnosed with stage 2 lung cancer just a short 7 months ago. Our presence at the ceremony was highly appreciated by Andy’s wife, mother, and sisters as Andy’s work was very important to him and he was engaged in his worklife until his final minutes.
Where did I put that...medical record?
It’s human nature to misplace things, even valuable things, such as your keys or phone. Fortunately, the impact is usually minimal, where only a few people feel the pain of the missing item. Now consider the impact that could occur with clinicians who are frequently reliant on a single copy of a medical record, as happens in many paper-based offices and hospitals.
Even This I Get to Experience
Norman Lear. Penguin Press, $32.95 (462p) ISBN 978-1-59420-572-9 The television producer whose controversial sit-com hits%E2%80%94All In The Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, One Day at a Time%E2%80%94virtually defined the culture of the 1970s looks back on his triumphs and vexations in this feisty, thoughtful autobiography.
"The “Original Intent” of U.S. International Taxation" by Michael J. Graetz and Michael M. O'Hear
Michael J. Graetz & Michael M. O'Hear, The "Original Intent" of U.S. International Taxation, 46 1021-1110 (1997) Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol46/iss5/2
Tax Analysts
By Michael J. Graetz Michael J. Graetz is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, and Columbia Alumni Professor of Tax Law, at Columbia Law School. He is grateful to the Milton Handler Research Fund at Columbia Law School for its support of this article. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was an important achievement, but it has not proved lasting. Nor did it receive much public support. Many of its reforms have since been reversed.
Tax Breaks for Rich Murderers
The politics of taxation can sometimes be gripping for a nation’s citizens, but not often: the arguments tend to be too technical when they are true, and too obviously bogus when they are false, to sustain public interest for long. By extension, the politics of another country’s tax system is unlikely to be of much interest to anyone with any sort of normal life.
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