Synopses & Reviews
In the winter of 1996, Steve Forbes--publisher, heir, and presidential candidate--captured the American imagination with his proposal for a flat tax. But while Mr. Forbes claimed that such a tax would level the economic playing field by eliminating countless loopholes and miles of red tape, his actual proposal betrayed such claims to fairness by overtaxing workers and undertaxing financial capital.
In the face of recent proposals for dramatic and far-reaching tax reform, Taxing America takes a critical look at the way the federal government collects its revenue and exposes the bias at the heart of a system which claims to be objective and fair. Contrary to traditional tax scholarship, these writers argue that an awareness of disability discrimination, economic exploitation, heterosexism, sexism and racism is crucial to any analysis of tax policy.
Gathering together essays whose topics range from federal housing policy to environmental clean-up costs to tax treaty policy making, Karen B. Brown and Mary Louise Fellows present a philosophy that is as simple as it is radical: economic arrangements contribute significantly to the creation of social hierarchies and the perpetuation of discrimination. Given this reality, Brown and Fellows maintain that the goal of the federal tax law should be social justice and the disruption of discriminatory and exploitative practices.
Review
"A remarkable and innovative use of psychological methods to study and understand crucial social problems . . . Voted Out offers us a new model for action research."-Bonnie R. Strickland,University of Massachusetts at Amherst and former President, American Psychological Association
Review
"One of the quandaries that the plaintiffs in the court challenge to Amendment 2 faced at the outset was how to obtain an immediate injunction to prevent the amendment from taking effect when there was no proof that the enforcement of Amendment 2 would cause irreparable harm. This well-written book provides that proof: without ever having taken legal effect, Amendment 2 took an enormous psychological toll."-Jean E. Dubofsky,lead attorney for plaintiffs in Romer v. Evans (the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court held Amendement 2 unconstitutional)
Review
"Russell's data is moving and powerful, and I would expect this book to become an essential referent for gay rights activists in the future." -SIGNS,
Synopsis
When, in 1992, the citizens of Colorado ratified Amendment 2, effectively stripping lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals of protection from discrimination under the state's constitution, the vote divided the state and left the gay population disspirited and angry. Their psychological predicament offered an opportunity to examine the precise intersection at which the individual meets social oppression.
Voted Out is the first to document the psychological impact of anti-gay legislation on the gay community, illustrating the range of reactions, from depression, anger, and anxiety to a sense of empowerment and a desire to mobilize, which such legislation can engender. It also offers a detailed account of an innovative team approach to the qualitative coding and analysis process. Blending traditional quantitative methods with more innovative qualitative analyses, it provides a valuable opportunity to compare quantitative and qualitative data focused on the same issue within one volume.
The volume specifically addresses researchers' use of the results of their research beyond publication and the ways in which research undertaken to examine a social issue can be returned to the community.
About the Author
Glenda M. Russell is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies in Amherst, MA. She is coauthor of Conversations about Psychology and Sexual Orientation (also available from NYU Press).