To most Americans, the United States tax code has become a vast and confounding puzzle. This text maintains that the US tax code has become a tangle of loopholes, paperwork, and inconsistencies, a massive social programme that fails tests of simplicity and fairness.

"For most of the history of the United States, periods of growing indebtedness—a product of wars and economic crises—were followed by reductions in the debt-to-GDP ratio." But why have the last several decades failed to follow this pattern, leaving the national debt at its highest level since World War II? In this groundbreaking new book, author Marc Allen Eisner, who has devoted most of his scholarly career to studying the evolution of the US political economy, explores the significant changes in the fiscal conditions of the United States during the postwar period, embedding the discussion in a broader historical context. He demonstrates that the national debt is in part a product of reduced revenues and the growing costs of the largest entitlement programs, but it also reflects a long series of shocks, including two wars, the financial crisis and Great Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Deficits, Debt, and American Politics chronicles the history of the US debt in the postwar period, placed in the context of broader changes in the political economy and partisan politics. But it grounds this exploration in reader-friendly, chapter-length discussions of public finance, taxation, mandatory spending, and the budgetary process from a policy perspective. The volume concludes with a discussion of the challenges of comprehensive tax and program reforms in the current political climate. Deficits, Debt, and American Politics assumes little prior knowledge on the part of the reader, making it an ideal book for courses on public policy and political economy taught at both the upper-level undergraduate and graduate level. The material on public finance, long-term trends in taxation and spending, and the budgetary process, often relegated to descriptive texts, will be invaluable in courses engaging the deficit and debt.

As a united global economy evolves, economists and policymakers are forced to consider whether the current system of taxing income is inconsistent with the trend toward liberalized world financial flows and increased international competition. To help assess existing tax policies and incentives, this volume presents new research on how taxes affect the investment and financing decisions of multinationals today. The contributors examine the effects of taxation on decisions about international financial management, business investment, and international income shifting. They consider the influence of tax rules on dividend policy decisions within multinationals; the extent to which tax incentives affect the level and location of research and development across countries; and the fact that foreign-controlled companies operating in the United States pay lower taxes than do domestically controlled companies. The contributors to this volume are Rosanne Altshuler, Alan J. Auerbach, Neil Bruce, Timothy Goodspeed, Roger H. Gordon, Harry Grubert, Bronwyn H. Hall, David Harris, Kevin Hassett, James R. Hines Jr., Roy D. Hogg, Joosung Jun, Jeffrey K. Mackie-Mason, Jack M. Mintz, Randall Morck, John Mutti, T. Scott Newlon, James M. Poterba, Joel Slemrod, Deborah Swenson, G. Peter Wilson, and Bernard Yeung.

Introduction -- Taxation of income from capital -- The U.S. tax system -- Effective tax rates -- Summary and conclusion.