The Limits of Symbolic Reform: The New Deal and Taxation, 19331939

In The Limits of Symbolic Reform, Mark Leff examines the gap between politics and economics, between symbol and substance in the New Deal. The New Deal never lacked for controversy, and tax policy reliably aroused the fiercest of emotions. Franklin Roosevelt's celebrated tax reform proposals - presented amidst verbal barrages against 'economic royalists' and the 'unjust concentration of wealth and economic power' - signified almost nothing in terms of revenue. Cosmetic higher rates on upper...