Wedded to the joint return: Culture and the persistence of the marital unit in the American Income Tax

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 631-653

  Kornhauser, Marjorie E ^a  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77954496147     PISSN: None     EISSN: 15653404     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2202/1565-3404.1254     Document Type: Article

References (129)

1. CONG. BUDGET OFFICE, FOR BETTER OR FORWORSE: MARRIAGE and THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX 59 (1997) (reporting that ten OECD countries switched to separate taxation between 1970 and 1990; none went from separate to joint).
2. See OECD, TAX POLICY STUDIES, PUB'N NO. 12, TAXING WORKING FAMILIES: A DISTRIBUTIONAL ANALYSIS 37, 39 tbl.1.2.3 (2005). Some countries provide for separate taxation of employment income, but require that investment income be split. Many countries have extended the beneficial treatment of married couples to include same sex and/or heterosexual unmarried couples.
3. Although the terms joint return and marital unit are not synonymous, this Article frequently uses them interchangeably because they are closely linked in the public's mind.
4. See, e.g., Henry Ordower, Comparative Law Observations on Taxation of Same-Sex Couples, 111 TAX NOTES 229 (2006)
5. Obama OKs Some Benefits for Employees' Same-Sex Partners, CNN POL., June 17, 2009, available at http:// www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/16/obama.same.sex. benefits/ .
6. For a current list of marriage laws in the various states see Nat'l Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Same Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships, http://www. ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/HumanServices/ SameSexMarriage/tabid/16430/Default.aspx (last visited June 9, 2009). As of June 9, 2009, six states permitted same-sex marriages: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, with California repealing by referendum a state Supreme Court decision allowing them.
7. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Pub. L. No.104-199, 110 Stat. 2419 (1996); Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105 and its reauthorization by Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-171, 120 Stat. 4 (2006).
8. Letter from Dayna K. Shah, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, U.S. Gen. Accounting Office, to Bill Frist, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate (Jan. 23, 2004), available at .
9. But see Scott Wilson, President Wades Into Gay Issues Order Gives Some Benefits to Partners of Federal Workers, WASH. POST, June 18, 2009, at A1 (partners entitled to long-term health insurance, sick leave).
10. Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [GG] [Basic Law] May 23, 1949, art. 6 para. 1.
11. See Maria Wersig, Overcoming Joint Taxation: Case Study Germany (May 2009) (unpublished manuscript), available at http://userpage.fuberlin. de/∼mwersig/Paper-Onati.pdf
12. Henry Ordower, Horizontal and Vertical Equity in Taxation as Constitutional Principles: Germany and the United States Contrasted, 7 FLA. TAX REV. 259 (2006).
13. For a discussion of corruption, see, for example, GORDON S. WOOD, CREATION of THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 32-34 (1969).
14. Many of the excellent histories of the family note the role of the republican marriage and family. See, e.g., KAY S. HYMOWITZ, MARRIAGE and CASTE in AMERICA: SEPARATE ANDUNEQUALFAMILIES INA POST-MARITALAGE 33-37 (2006)
15. STEPHANIE COONTZ, MARRIAGE, A HISTORY: FROM OBEDIENCE to INTIMACY, OR HOW LOVE CONQUERED MARRIAGE (2005)
16. NANCY F. COTT, PUBLIC VOWS: A HISTORY of MARRIAGE and THE NATION 15-22 (2002)
17. HENDRIK HARTOG, MAN and WIFE in AMERICA (2000)
18. MICHAEL GROSSBERG, GOVERNING THE HEARTH: LAW and THE FAMILY in NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA (1985).
19. See COTT, supra note 8, at 20-21 (quoting John Adams).
20. See ROBERT P. SUTTON, MODERN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES: A DICTIONARY (2005). in the United States, polygamy was not confined to the Mormons.
21. See, e.g., Yale Univ. Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Oneida, http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/utopia/uc10.html (last visited June 9, 2009) (discussing "complex marriage"). Certain fundamental Mormon sects continue the practice.
22. See, e.g., FRANK LAMBERT, RELIGION in AMERICAN POLITICS: A SHORT HISTORY 45 (2008)
23. LINDA K. KERBER, WOMEN of THE REPUBLIC: INTELLECT and IDEOLOGY in REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA (1980)
24. Rosemarie Zagarri, Morals, Manners, and the Republican Mother, 44 AM. Q. 192 (1992)
25. Jan Lewis, the Republican Wife: Virtue and Seduction in the Early Republic, 44 WM. & MARY Q. 689, 700 (1987).
26. See generally SEEDBEDS of VIRTUE: SOURCES of COMPETENCE, CHARACTER, and CITIZENSHIP INAMERICAN SOCIETY (Mary Ann Glendon & David Blankenhorn eds., 1995).
27. Theodore Roosevelt, Speech Before the National Congress of Mothers (Mar. 13, 1905), available at http://www.bartleby.com/268/10/29.html.
28. See, e.g., C. Quince Hopkins, the Supreme Court's Family Law Doctrine Revisited: Insights From Social Science on Family Structures and Kinship Change in the United States, 13 CORNELL J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 431 (2003-2004).
29. - 142 CONG. REC. H7442 (daily ed. July 11, 1996) (statement of Hutchinson, quoting President Bush on the "enormous implications"); accord 142 CONG. REC. H7493 (daily ed. July 12, 1996) (statement of Weldon that marriage is "the foundation of Western civilization").
30. E.g., 104 CONG. REC. H7486 (daily ed. July 12, 1996) (Buyer stating that the nation is based on biblical principles which are threatened as marriage is under attack)
31. see also BRADFORD WILCOX, SACRED VOWS, PUBLIC PURPOSES: RELIGION, THEMARRIAGEMOVEMENT ANDMARRIAGE POLICY 3 (2002), available at http://pewforum.org/publications/reports/marriagepolicy.pdf (arguing that marriage is a "seedbed of virtues" that "often . . . radiate outward into civil society, furnishing married men and women with stronger habits of devotion to civic life than their unmarried peers").
32. But see Amir Pax-Fuchs, Welfare to Work: Myth and Fact, Social Inclusion and Labour Exclusion, 28 OXFORD J. LEGAL STUD. 797, 806 (2008) (arguing that the allegation that the lower poverty rate among married couples illustrates marriage's "innate superiority" is refuted by equivalent poverty rates between married and unmarried couples in countries with different government policies).
33. GROSSBERG, supra note 8, at 9-10.
34. Charlott Nyman & Lasse Reinikainen, Elusive Independence in a Context of Gender Equality in Sweden, in MODERN COUPLES SHARING MONEY, SHARING LIFE 46, 47 (Janet Stocks, Capitolina Dias & Bjorn Hallerod eds., 2007).
35. BRIAN W. CASHELL, CONG. RESEARCH SERV., WHO ARE THE MIDDLE CLASS? 2-4 (2007), available at http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RS22627-20070320.pdf.
36. Jerry G. Pankhurst & Sharon K. Houseknecht, the Family, Politics, and Religion in the 1980s: Fear of the New Individualism, 4 J. FAM. ISSUES 5, 26 (1983).
37. AMY DRU STANLEY, FROM BONDAGE to CONTRACT (1998).
38. See, e.g., COTT, supra note 8, at 84-104.
39. See, e.g., NATASHA ZARETSKY, NO DIRECTION HOME: THE AMERICAN FAMILY and THE FEAR of NATIONAL DECLINE, 1968-1980 (2007);
40. GRETCHEN RITTER, THE CONSTITUTION AS SOCIAL DESIGN: GENDER and CIVIC MEMBERSHIP in THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER 67, 70-71(2006).
41. Republican Platform of 1856, http://www.ushistory.org/gop/convention- 1856repub licanplatform.htm (last visited Nov. 30, 2009).
42. the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, 12 Stat. 501.
43. Reynolds v. U.S., 98 U.S. 145, 166-167 (1878).
44. Edmunds Act of 1882, 22 Stat. 30.
45. See, e.g., Adam J. MacLeod, the Search for Moral Neutrality in Same-Sex Marriage Decisions, 23 BYU J. PUB. L. 1 (2008)
46. Kristen A. Berberick, Comment, Marrying into Heaven: The Constitutionality of Polygamy Bans Under the Free Exercise Clause, 44 WILLAMETTE L. REV. 105 (2007)
47. Stanley Kurtz, Polygamy Versus Democracy: You Can't Have Both, 11 WKLY. STANDARD, June 5, 2006, available at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/ Public/Articles/000/000/012/266jhfgd.asp.
48. - 142 CONG. REC. S4947 (daily ed. May 9, 1996) (without mentioning the case by name).
49. GROSSBERG, supra note 8, at 10-12.
50. SUZANNE METTLER, DIVIDING CITIZENS: GENDER and FEDERALISM in NEW DEAL PUBLIC POLICY (1998).
51. COTT, supra note 8, at 197
52. Dennis J. Ventry, Jr., For Richer, for Poorer: How Tax Policymakers Have Protected and Punished American Families, 1913-2006, at 248 (2007) (unpublished manuscript, on file with author).
53. MARY ANN GLENDON, Introduction: Forgotten Questions, in SEEDBEDS of VIRTUE, supra note 12, at 1, 3.
54. Pankhurst & Houseknecht, supra note 20.
55. REPUBLICAN NAT'L CONVENTION, REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM of 1980 (1980), available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25844.
56. Id.
57. See sources cited in note 5, supra. On the interplay of family values, marriage promotion and welfare, see JOEL F. HANDLER & YEHESKEL HASENFELD, BLAME WELFARE, IGNORE POVERTY and INEQUALITY (2007)
58. Judith E. Koons, Motherhood, Marriage, and Morality: The Pro-Marriage Moral Discourse of American Welfare Policy, 19 WIS. WOMEN'S L.J. 1 (2004).
59. NAT'L COMM'N ON CIVIC RENEWAL, A NATION of SPECTATORS: HOW CIVIC DISENGAGEMENTWEAKENS AMERICA ANDWHATWE CAN DO ABOUT IT 13 (1998).
60. LAMBERT, supra note 11, at 9 (discussing foreigners' astonishment at the religiousness of the United States)
61. KENNETH D. WALD & ALLISON CALHOUNBROWN, RELIGION and POLITICS in THE UNITED STATES 20-55 (2007) (listing four major factors: cultural compatibility, need for social identity, independence of religion from the state, and competitive religious environment).
62. II ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DEMOCRACY in AMERICA bk. 1, ch. 5 (Henry Reeve Trans., 1863), available at http://xroads.virginia.edu/∼HYPER/DETOC/ch1-05. htm.
63. LAMBERT, supra note 11, at 2 (quoting a 1779 sermon by Samuel Williams on the "essential nature of Christianity to the moral fabric of society").
64. the Family Research Council states that marriage, religious "observance," and the "Judeo-Christian worldview [have] provided a sound basis for the flourishing of our national culture and our political system." Family Research Council, Religion and Culture, http://www.frc.org/religion-culture (last visited Nov. 30, 2009)
65. accord PATRICK FAGAN, KIRK PATRICK& JONATHAN BUTCHER, A PORTRAIT of FAMILY and RELIGION in AMERICA: KEY OUTCOMES FOR THE COMMON GOOD (2006), available at http://www.heritage.org/Research/family/Map-of-Religion.pdf (arguing that teenagers with intact families and religious attendance are least likely to have committed crimes).
66. WALD& CALHOUN-BROWN, supra note 39, at 42.
67. THOMAS S. KIDD, THE GREAT AWAKENING: THE ROOTS of EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY in COLONIAL AMERICA 288 & passim (2007).
68. WALD&CALHOUN-BROWN, supra note 39, at 43. Much of the following discussion is drawn from id. at 42-54.
69. Bill Clinton, Acceptance Speech to the Democratic National Convention (July 16, 1992), available at http://www.4president.org/speeches/ billclinton1992acceptance. htm.
70. the Network of Spiritual Progressives, A Spiritual Covenant with America, http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php/covenant (last visited Nov. 30, 2009).
71. For the Republican Contract, see, Republican Contract with America, http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html (last visited Nov. 30, 2009).
72. See, e.g., Robert N. Bellah, Civil Religion in America, 96 DAEDALUS 1 (1967).
73. Transcript: The Vice-Presidential Debate, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 2, 2008, available at http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/ vice-presidentialdebate. html
74. see also LAMBERT, supra note 11, at 17 (calling exceptionalism one of most "powerful and enduring myths")
75. Christopher Caldwell, First Nation, N.Y. TIMES MAG., Aug. 31, 2008, at 9 (arguing that both presidential candidates believe in exceptionalism).
76. Ronald Reagan, Remarks at a Dallas Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast (Aug. 23, 1984), available at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ ronaldreaganecumenical prayer.htm.
77. Wilfred M. McClay, the Soul of a Nation, 155 PUB. INT. 4, 8 (2004).
78. PEW RESEARCH CTR., MANY AMERICANS UNEASY WITH MIX of RELIGION and POLITICS 5 (2006), available at http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/ religionpolitics-06.pdf.
79. - 141 CONG. REC. S1557 (daily ed. Jan. 26, 1995) (Reverend Richard C. Halverson) This prayer was given ten times between 1988 and 2006.
80. E.g., Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Home Page, http://pewforum.org/reli gion-politics/ (last visited Aug. 13, 2008) (discussing religion's role in major issues of the day).
81. On the culture wars, see Pat Buchanan, Address at 1992 Republican National Convention, Houston Texas (Aug. 17, 1992), available at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/patrickbuchanan1992rnc.htm ("[C]ulture [war is a] religious war . . . for the soul of America. It is as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.").
82. LAMBERT, supra note 11, at 59-63 (discussing religious opposition to Congress extending mail service to Sundays in 1810).
83. Genesis 2:4-25 (woman created out of Adam's rib and eating the apple).
84. But see Genesis 1:27 (on the sixth day, God created both man and woman in his image).
85. WILCOX, supra note 16, at 10-11 (arguing that at the national level the movement seems "motivated by civic goods like social order and fiscal probity, and by social goods like the welfare of children," but religion is "central" at the state and local levels). However, even at the national level, religion provides an important service - it is the source of leaders, and provides places to hold conferences, discuss problems, and so forth.
86. See Pankhurst & Houseknecht, supra note 20, at 15-17. the movement is increasingly international.
87. See DORIS BUSS & DIDI HERMAN, GLOBALIZING FAMILY VALUES: THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT in INTERNATIONAL POLITICS (2003).
88. Daniel Bergner, Can Leah Daughtry Bring Faith to the Party?, N.Y. TIMES MAG., July 20, 2008, at 25, 26
89. JOHN C. GREEN, THE FAITH FACTOR: HOW RELIGION INFLUENCES AMERICAN ELECTIONS 16-17 (2007).
90. See generally GREEN, supra note 57
91. A MATTER of FAITH: RELIGION in THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION (David E. Campbell ed., 2007). Approximately 40 percent of Americans describe themselves as evangelical, born-again Christians, and five presidents from Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush, "either have been evangelicals or have closely aligned themselves with evangelical leaders."
92. KIDD, supra note 43, at xiii.
93. See alsoWALD&CALHOUN-BROWN, supra note 39, at 206-210 (arguing that the influence of evangelicalism/conservatism on politics goes back as far as the 1960s)
94. PEW RESEARCH CTR., supra note 51.
95. Peter Slevin, Some Clergy Flout Tax Law, Choose Political Sides, BOSTON GLOBE, Sept. 29, 2008, at A10.
96. Katharine Q. Seelye & John M. Broder, in Forum at Church, Rivals Meet Briefly and Part Sharply on Social Issues, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 17, 2008, at 3, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res= 9E01E3D6163CF934A2575BC0 A 96E9C8B63&scp=3&sq=.+ (last visited Nov. 30, 2009)
97. Katharine Q. Seelye & John M. Broder, U.S. Candidates Are Thrown into Relief at a Church Forum, INT'L HERALD TRIB., Aug. 17, 2008, at 3, available at http://www.iht.com/articles/2008 /08/17/america/17forum.php.
98. the benefit originally accrued to a (relatively) wealthy minority of taxpayers, but it helped more single-earner couples as median family income increased and the value of exemptions from tax decreased. Assume the tax brackets were 10 percent for the first $10,000 of income and 20 percent for the second. Assume taxpayer A, who has $20,000 taxable income, is married to B who has none. Without income splitting, A pays $3000 of tax; B pays none. Under income splitting, each is deemed to have half of the couple's combined income ($10,000 each) and pays $1000 tax. in effect, the couple's brackets are twice as large as an individual taxpayer's brackets. As long as the married brackets are double the single brackets, a married couple will never pay more than if they were single (although the tax benefit of being married decreases if both work, and disappears if they have similar amounts of income). If the married brackets are more than - but not double - the single brackets, then some couples will receive a tax benefit from being married (e.g. a single earner couple), but others (e.g. dual earners with equal incomes) will suffer a marriage "penalty" and be forced to pay more in taxes as a married couple than if they were not married and paid taxes at the single's rate. This has been the case since 1969. See Leslie A. Whittington & James Alm, Marriage Penalty, in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA of TAXATION and TAX POLICY 251 (Joseph J. Cordes, Robert D. Ebel & Jane G. Gravelle eds., 2d ed. 2005), available at http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/ encyclopedia/Marriage-Penalty.cfm.
99. See, e.g., CONG. BUDGET OFFICE, supra note 1
100. Theodore P. Seto, the Unintended Tax Advantages of Gay Marriage, 65 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 1529 (2008).
101. Although the joint return is not mandatory, a married couple who file separately cannot use the same tax rates that single individuals use, but rather must split the married rate brackets the couple would use if filing jointly. As a consequence, most married couples will pay the same tax (as a couple) if they file separately or jointly. in certain situations, however, they will pay less if they file separately, as when, for example, one spouse has all the itemized deductions.
102. Alice Kessler-Harris, "A Principle of Law but Not of Justice": Men, Women and Income Taxes in the U.S. 1913-1948, 6 S.CAL. REV. L.&WOMEN'SSTUD. 331 (1997)
103. Ventry, supra note 32, at 30-70. By the late 1920s, after some earlier vacillation, the Treasury determined that the individual generallywas the proper unit. in 1930 the Supreme Court held that married couples could split their income only in community property states, because only in those states did the wife as a matter of state property law own one-half of the husband's income earned during the marriage.
104. Poe v. Seaborn, 282 U.S. 101 (1930)
105. Lucas v. Earl, 281 U.S. 111 (1930). Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, various proposals for uniform treatment were made, including mandatory joint returns (without income splitting) which would tax community income to the spouse with management powers.
106. Since this would increase tax liabilities for wealthy married couples, many opposed it on the grounds that it harmed marriage. Boris I. Bittker, Taxation of the Family, 27 STAN. L. REV. 1389, 1409-1410 (1975). Finally, in 1948 Congress enacted voluntary income splitting for married couples filing a joint return. Unlike mandatory joint return proposals which could not gather enough votes to pass, the concept of splitting income was politically viable: The Treasury accepted it; middle-and upper-bracket taxpayers approved because it was their best chance of getting tax cuts past President Truman who had already vetoed previous tax bills.
107. Stanley Surrey, Taxation of the Family - the Revenue Act of 1948, 61 HARV. L. REV. 1097, 1104 (1948). Later Revenue acts reduced the benefits of income splitting, but did not change the basic rule.
108. REPUBLICAN NAT'L CONVENTION, supra note 35.
109. Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), Pub. L. No.97-34, 95 Stat. 172 (I.R.C. § 221).
110. Easing the Family Tax Burden: Hearing on S. 107-170 Before the Comm. on Finance, 107th Cong. 10 (2001) (Statement of Lawrence Zelenak).
111. S. Con. Res. 86, 105th Cong. § 326 (1998).
112. Alison Mitchell, Bush Returning Tax-Cut Plan to Center Stage, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 2, 2000, at 1, 23.
113. D. MARK WILSON & WILLIAM W. BEACH, THE ECONOMIC IMPACT of PRESIDENT BUSH'S TAX RELIEF PLAN (Ctr. for Data Analysis, Report No. 01-01, 2001), http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/cda01-01.cfm (reporting a 10 percent deduction for lower-earner spouse to a maximum of $3000)
114. JANE GRAVELLE, GOV'T& FIN. DIV., THE MARRIAGE TAX PENALTY: AN OVERVIEW of THE ISSUES 2 (2000), available at http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/ RL30419-20001220.pdf
115. David E. Sanger, Bush Tax Plan Sent to Congress, N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 9, 2001, at A1 (not specifically mentioning the amount).
116. See, e.g., Stan Greenberg & James Carville, Democracy Corps, Turning Point and Strategic Choices 6 (June 20, 2001), http://www.greenbergresearch.com/ articles/ 1924/3115-Turning-Point-and-Strategic-Choices.pdf (College tuition and child credit tax issues ranked higher than marriage penalty).
117. - 147 CONG. REC. H1300 (daily ed. Mar. 29, 2001).
118. - 146 CONG. REC. S2673 (daily ed. Apr. 13, 2000) (statement of Mack); accord President's Tax Relief Proposals: Tax Proposals Affecting Individuals: Hearing on H.R 107-6 Before the H. Comm. on Ways & Means, 107th Cong. 34 (2001) [hereinafter Hearing] (statement of Sen. Hutchinson on the necessary relief for married couples regardless of whether one spouse is at home).
119. Hearing, supra note 73, at 36 (statement of Charles A. Donovan).
120. Id. at 35.
121. For a recent proposal, see Newt Gingrich & Peter Ferrara, Let's Have a Real Middle-Class Tax Cut,WALLST. J., Nov. 20, 2008, available at http://online.wsj.com /article/SB122714465532443171.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
122. See, e.g., DANIEL A. SMITH, TAX CRUSADERS and THE POLITICS of DIRECT DEMOCRACY 21-23 (1998)
123. Marjorie E. Kornhauser, Legitimacy and the Right of Revolution: The Role of Tax Protests and Anti-Tax Rhetoric in America, 50 BUFF. L. REV. 819 (2002).
124. Peter Haan & Dolores Navarro, Optimal Income Taxation of Married Couples: An Empirical Analysis of Joint and Individual Taxation (Inst. for the Study of Labor, Discussion Paper No. 3819, 2008), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1305803 (arguing that joint taxation is optimal only "when the government has a high taste for redistribution towards one-earner couples and a very low or even negative taste for redistribution towards couples in which both partners earn a similar amount of income").
125. E.g., 147 CONG. REC. H1308 (daily ed. Mar. 29, 2001) (statement of Jones).
126. E.g., Dorothy A. Brown, Race and Class Matters in Tax Policy, 107 COLUM. L. REV. 790 (2007).
127. Jeff Madrick, Time for a New Deal, 55 N.Y. REV. BOOKS 65, 66 (2008).
128. A 2003 NPR/Kaiser poll revealed that half of the respondents did not know a tax cut had occurred in the past two years. See NPR/Kaiser Family Found./Kennedy Sch. of Gov't, Americans' Views on Taxes (Apr. 2003) http://www.npr.org/news/specials/polls/taxes2003/.
129. Bittker, supra note 64, at 1392.