The origins of American public finance : debates over money, debt, and taxes in the Constitutional era, 1776-1836
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The origins of American public finance : debates over money, debt, and taxes in the Constitutional era, 1776-1836
(Contributions in economics and economic history, no. 198)
Greenwood Press, 1998
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
An examination of an early version of the debate over money, debt, and taxes sheds light on current debates regarding public finance, a balanced budget, and paying off the public debt. Stabile shows that while special interest lobbying during the constitutional convention produced tax loopholes as part of the Constitution, determined leaders were able to get a reluctant population used to paying taxes and were capable of putting together plans of public finance that attained their goals. Such historical evidence challenges the view that political leaders are incapable of passing the unpopular taxes needed to balance the federal government's budget and pay off the public debt.
Taking a political economy approach that describes how political leaders took economic ideas and made them work, this book combines intellectual history with economic history. Previous books on public finance history have focused on economic issues regarding taxes. Exploring the intellectual history of the debates over money, debt, and taxes as the three potential forms of public finance, Stabile provides insight into the constitutional debate alive at the end of the 20th century.
Table of Contents
Foreword by David O. Whitten
Preface
Introduction: To Mortgage the Public Revenue
Too Frequent Emissions
Requisitions Small and Slow
To Levy Money Directly
We the People
A National Revenue
Subject to all the Burdens
A Choice of Evils
A Wise and Frugal Government
A Proper Selection of Moderate Internal Taxes
An Unprecedented Spectacle
Epilogue: As Sure as Debt and Taxes
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"