Mar 1, 2018
President Donald Trump’s recently passed tax bill included a
sizable tax break for many American corporations, slashed from 35
percent to 21 percent. While the tax cuts have increased cash flow
for businesses, they also raise questions about the power of
corporations in Washington through lobbying, campaign finance and
political mobilization. Author and academic Gordon Lafer joins this
episode of Politics & Polls to discuss the corporate tax cut and
his new book, “The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are
Remaking America One State at a Time.” Lafer is a political
economist and is an associate professor at the University of
Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. He has written on
issues of labor and employment policy and is author of “The Job
Training Charade” (Cornell University Press, 2002). Lafer has
served as an economic policy analyst for the Office of the Mayor in
New York City and has testified as an expert witness before the
U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislatures.
Lafer is the founding co-chair of the American Political Science
Association’s Labor Project, and has taught as a visiting faculty
member at the University of Massachusetts’ Union Leadership Academy
and at the Universidad Latina de America in Michoacan, Mexico. From
2009 to 2010, Lafer took leave from his faculty position to serve
as senior labor policy advisor for the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.