Bob Lord

Bob has mostly wound down his 39-year career as a tax and business lawyer (with a 1-year interruption to run for Congress in 2008 (CD3), when he tried to unseat John Shadegg. Bob now serves as the senior advisor on tax policy for the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who believe the light taxation of America's rich is destabilizing our democracy, and as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob has been writing for Blog For Arizona since late 2011, concentrating mostly on federal issues, with an occasional foray into Arizona state politics.

Isn’t it Time to Take to the Streets?

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Posted by Bob Lord All pretense regarding the purpose for the restrictive voting measures that swept the country has been peeled away. Weeks ago, a Pennsylvania Republican outright boasted how their passage of the voter ID law would allow them to deliver Pennsylvania to Romney in November. There's no shame. There's no contrition. There's no … Read more

Revisiting Old Posts — One On, One Off

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Posted by Bob Lord In my first substantive post here, back in January, I described how we were living through the "Atlas Shrugged Upside Down," a society where damaging conservative policies are allowed to proceed to their crazy conclusion. You can read it here: http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2012/01/atlas-shrugged-upside-down.html Turns out, I was on point in two respects. First, the … Read more

The Mirage They Sell

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Posted by Bob Lord Throughout the RNC, we heard how someone "built that," woven into references to the American Dream. Marco Rubio talked about how his father tended bar in the back of the room so he son could one day stand at the podium in the front of the room. Was it moving? Of … Read more

AZ09

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Posted by Bob Lord It was jubliant at the Sinema primary party last night, as well it should have been. She ran a solid race and won easily, despite being outspent heavily in the closing weeks. (Disclosure: I've supported Sinema's campaign). Kyrsten's victory speech in my mind struck the right tone, heavily emphasizing the craziness, … Read more

The Moral Imperative of Tax Policy

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Posted by Bob Lord

If we don't arrest and ultimately reverse the concentration of wealth (and, with wealth, power) in America, nothing else will matter in the end. The America we know, the America we think of when we refer to it as the greatest country on earth, doesn't exist if fewer than 1% of the population controls more than 90% of the wealth. That's already a possibility. And if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan win in November, they'll make absolutely sure of it. 

The only brake on the undue buildup of wealth at the top in a capitalist society is tax policy. Thus, tax policy has a purpose beyond the obvious one of raising revenue to run the government. In this critical respect, Romney and Ryan aim to turn tax policy entirely on its head. In doing so, they intend to destroy American society as we know it.