Quality of life is improving. This argument has been made by too many conservatives to count. Yes, it's true that an unemployed steelworker living in the 21st century is in many important ways better off than the royals and aristocrats of yesteryear. Living conditions improve over time. But people do not experience life as an interesting moment in the evolution of human societies. They experience it in the present and weigh their own experience against that of the living. Brooks cites (even though it contradicts his argument) a famous 1998 study by economists Sara Solnick (then at the University of Miami, now at the University of Vermont) and David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health. Subjects were asked which they'd prefer: to earn $50,000 while knowing everyone else earned $25,000, or to earn $100,000 while knowing everyone else earned $200,000. Objectively speaking, $100,000 is twice as much as $50,000. Even so, 56 percent chose $50,000 if it meant that would put them on top rather than at the bottom. We are social creatures and establish our expectations relative to others.

Ironically, the Woody Allen firm that the last words link to seem to make the counter-argument: that such thinking is wrong-headed and that what matters most is where the train is heading and not which car you're on. But moving past that...

But it's worth looking further back to see how the tax burden has shifted over time. So, I'll do the same analysis going back to 1979. I'd go back further, but the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office only go that far. In any case, 1979 was just before the Reagan tax cuts which drastically reformed the tax code and greatly reduced the marginal tax rate on the highest income bracket. Therefore, we would expect for the Reagan tax cuts to have favored the rich by shifting more of the tax burden away from the rich to the middle and lower classes. But, before we investigate whether that's true, it's worth noting that there is a difference between the marginal tax rate and the effective tax rate. The effective tax rate is the portion of income that is actually paid in taxes. The amount that someone pays in taxes depends on the tax rate and brackets, but that is only part of the picture. If the tax brackets and rates were all the mattered in the tax code, it wouldn't be several thousand pages long. I think we can agree that what really matters is what taxes people actually pay, not what taxes they theoretically would pay according to their tax bracket's marginal rate. So, even though Reagan reduced the marginal tax rate on the rich, that doesn't necessarily mean that the rich are paying less taxes.

Reagan lowered top marginal tax rates a lot, but he lowered top effective tax rates much less—and certainly not enough to make income-tax policy a major cause of the Great Divergence....

The larger point is that you can't really demonstrate that U.S. tax policy had a large impact on the three-decade income inequality trend one way or the other.

With the Bush tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year and politicians scrambling to figure out how to extend some or all of them, tax policy is bound to be a central issue in the coming months. I thought it was time to examine the question a little more.

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Bartels came to this conclusion by looking at average annual pre-tax income growth (corrected for inflation) for the years 1948 to 2005, a period encompassing much of the egalitarian Great Compression and all of the inegalitarian Great Divergence (up until the time he did his research). Bartels broke down the data according to income percentile and whether the president was a Democrat or a Republican. Figuring the effects of White House policies were best measured on a one-year lag, Bartels eliminated each president's first year in office and substituted the year following departure. Here is what he found:

That looks pretty impressive. According to the chart, not only have Democratic presidents created more equitable income growth, but they've created larger growth for every income category! This seems to be a slam dunk case against Republicans. But there are some problems.

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So, how would I fix the health care fix?

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Recently, I came across this stunning graph. Take a few moments to absorb its beauty:

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But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can't wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side -– a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can. The confirmation of -- (applause) -- I'm speaking to both parties now. The confirmation of well-qualified public servants shouldn't be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual senators. (Applause.)

Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it's precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it's sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.

So, no, I will not give up on trying to change the tone of our politics. I know it's an election year. And after last week, it's clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern.

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The Supreme Court ruled last week that the government cannot prevent organizations, including corporations and labor unions, from weighing in on political campaigns. The reaction I've seen has been almost all negative, with some claiming that it is the end of democracy as we know it. While I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, I am concerned that this will make it even easier for corporations to gain political influence. However, what strikes me about that argument is that it is completely irrelevant: if something is unconstitutional, it doesn't matter if we like the consequences of it or not.

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The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

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