Over the last forty years, rising national income has helped reduce poverty rates, but this has been accompanied by an increase in economic inequality. While these trends are largely attributed to technological change and demographic shifts, such as changing birth rates, labor force patterns,...

"Debates about the optimal structure for tax policies and tax rates hardly cease among public, policy, or academic audiences. These have only grown more heated in the United States as the gap between incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of the population continue to diverge. Tax...