The Enshrined Entitlements of America’s Wealthy

Tuesday, 11/29/2011 - 10:16 am by Suzanne Mettler

Thirty years ago, Republicans criticized tax expenditures for distorting the market. Now both parties view them as sacrosanct.

The super committee on deficit reduction has now disbanded without even having managed to agree on scaling back tax expenditures. These social welfare policies that are hidden in the tax code bestow their greatest benefits on high-income taxpayers, as I have shown elsewhere. They amount to over 7 percent of GDP, more than what we spend on either defense, Social Security, or Medicare and Medicaid combined, not to mention domestic discretionary programs, which cost far less than any of these.