The Century-Long Effort to De-Tax the Rich

David Cay Johnston writes today about the tea party movement:

Four years ago, the modern Tea Party seemed to emerge from nowhere….But little was spontaneous about the new party. “Social movements that explicitly defend the interests of the rich and the almost-rich have been a recurring feature of American politics,” Isaac William Martin, a sociologist at the University of California, San Diego, reminds us in his new book, Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent. “Such movements shook the American polity before the Obama era, before the Reagan era, and before Barry Goldwater ran for president—before, even, the New Deal.”

Yep. The whole thing is worth a read. My version from a couple of years ago is here.