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Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance During the Great Depression
Chapel Hill 1989 1st University of North Carolina. ISBN 0 8078 1836 4. Hardcover. Octavo, 216pp., cloth. Fine in Fine DJ. Unused. Like New.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 23, 2021
2020-04-28 - I read this shortly after it came out in 1989.
I am writing now, since a friend just sent me an article by the late Bettina Bien Greaves about a book written about similar resistance to FDR's New Deal in the Great Depression, Invisible Hands by Kim Phillips-Fein. The Phillips-Fein book dealt with the American Liberty League, a bipartisan and mixed ideology group of businesspeople, and other business groups that came later. Sounds like a book to get too.
But the main reason I am writing is to give you a brief note on this excellent book by David Beito, which deals with other groups focusing on taxpayers, just during the New Deal period and the attacks by the pro-BIG government forces to stifle their growth and ultimately emasculate them.
At times it is a very hopeful tale, but in the end, a very sad one.
I have fond memories of the excellent scholarship, entertaining and informative writing and insightful analysis of the movement.
But on the other hand, the quite depressing outcome of the actual history is very sobering.
I am writing now, since a friend just sent me an article by the late Bettina Bien Greaves about a book written about similar resistance to FDR's New Deal in the Great Depression, Invisible Hands by Kim Phillips-Fein. The Phillips-Fein book dealt with the American Liberty League, a bipartisan and mixed ideology group of businesspeople, and other business groups that came later. Sounds like a book to get too.
But the main reason I am writing is to give you a brief note on this excellent book by David Beito, which deals with other groups focusing on taxpayers, just during the New Deal period and the attacks by the pro-BIG government forces to stifle their growth and ultimately emasculate them.
At times it is a very hopeful tale, but in the end, a very sad one.
I have fond memories of the excellent scholarship, entertaining and informative writing and insightful analysis of the movement.
But on the other hand, the quite depressing outcome of the actual history is very sobering.
April 21, 2021
Few histories can claim to be truly new, but this one covers a subject that had barely received a mention before, but was crucial in the formulation of the New Deal. Even 30 years after its publication, one would be hard-pressed to find any discussion of the Great Depression Tax Revolt in books or documentaries.
The tax revolt was real and massive. From 1920 to 1929, local tax collections, almost all property taxes, increased from 3 to 5.4%. With the economy in freefall for the next four years, they increased to an incredible 11.7% of all income. In large cities, the number of payers in default reached 25%, and, as he chronicles in perhaps too-great depth, in Chicago, the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers carried on a two year strike, accompanied by two years of litigation, against the corrupt Chicago assessment machinery, which had been revealed in a 1928 report to be politically biased and wildly variable. The faced off against Mayor Anton Cermak and a host of local banks, who had invested heavily in municipal securities. The fight got brutal, the City formed a special commission to attack tax strikers, encouraged teachers to go door-to-door to badger non-payers, formed special cards and a radio campaign to "Pay Your Taxes!" and for awhile even tried to prosecute the ARET for criminal conspiracy. When the Illinois and US Supreme Courts refused to hear the taxpayers claim that the assessment was illegitimate, because it undervalued personal as opposed to real estate property, the revolt fell apart. As the author reveals, the creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1933, which gave 7% of all its loans to pay down real estate taxes, also helped.
The book shows a surprising unity of banks, insurance companies, politicos, and "good government" reformers who excoriated the tax strikers and tried to exclude them from respectable discourse. But many states in this era passed tax limitation laws and homestead exemptions, and even FDR began railing against the too-high property tax rate (the book doesn't mention this, and in general tries to bring few of the big and national players into the debate). On the whole, it shows the value of mining an untapped subject for insights. It also shows how those can create a different illumination of an era.
The tax revolt was real and massive. From 1920 to 1929, local tax collections, almost all property taxes, increased from 3 to 5.4%. With the economy in freefall for the next four years, they increased to an incredible 11.7% of all income. In large cities, the number of payers in default reached 25%, and, as he chronicles in perhaps too-great depth, in Chicago, the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers carried on a two year strike, accompanied by two years of litigation, against the corrupt Chicago assessment machinery, which had been revealed in a 1928 report to be politically biased and wildly variable. The faced off against Mayor Anton Cermak and a host of local banks, who had invested heavily in municipal securities. The fight got brutal, the City formed a special commission to attack tax strikers, encouraged teachers to go door-to-door to badger non-payers, formed special cards and a radio campaign to "Pay Your Taxes!" and for awhile even tried to prosecute the ARET for criminal conspiracy. When the Illinois and US Supreme Courts refused to hear the taxpayers claim that the assessment was illegitimate, because it undervalued personal as opposed to real estate property, the revolt fell apart. As the author reveals, the creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1933, which gave 7% of all its loans to pay down real estate taxes, also helped.
The book shows a surprising unity of banks, insurance companies, politicos, and "good government" reformers who excoriated the tax strikers and tried to exclude them from respectable discourse. But many states in this era passed tax limitation laws and homestead exemptions, and even FDR began railing against the too-high property tax rate (the book doesn't mention this, and in general tries to bring few of the big and national players into the debate). On the whole, it shows the value of mining an untapped subject for insights. It also shows how those can create a different illumination of an era.
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February 22, 2009Everyone,
I'm doing something the kids call live-blogging. I'm live-blogging this book. Check the blog—the live-blog—at http://thestanfielddoctrine.blogspot.... and you will not regret it. Or you might, I don't know.
I'm doing something the kids call live-blogging. I'm live-blogging this book. Check the blog—the live-blog—at http://thestanfielddoctrine.blogspot.... and you will not regret it. Or you might, I don't know.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews