A Chat with Hank Aaron about Social Security

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Henry (Hank) Aaron, a Senor Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution, about Social Security. They discuss how it started, how we fund it, who gets it, how it has been reformed, and how it could be fixed.

Send us a textJeff and Scott very briefly talk about the bombshell news that podcasters are included on the Treasury's list of jobs eligible for "no tax on tips." https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Tipped-Occupations-Detailed-8-27-2025.pdfLeft unexplored is whether any of the other provisions of no tax on tips will preclude Scott and Jeff from receiving tax-free tip income, by means of the credit available to offset declared tip income available in The One Big Beautiful Bill.

Send us a textJeff and Scott talk with Kyle Pomerleau about how inflation interacts with tax policy and the tax law. Kyle points out that inflation interacts in two major ways: When we tax gains that happen over long periods of time, and we have to think about whether adjusting the gain for inflation would help, and, when the tax system includes explicit dollar values, such as in thresholds, amounts of credits, the income tax brackets themselves. 

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Brad Setser, a Senior Fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, about income shifting among pharma firms, as well as the impact that shifting has on tariffs and international trade.

Send us a textJeff and Scott take a look at 4 books that Jeff has recently acquired for the Tax Museum library, which numbers at least 677 volumes. Almost all of these books were a an academic bequest from one of Jeff's mentees, Joel Slemrod.  Jeff introduces four books, asks a question related to the book, and Scott tries his best at answering. The four books mentioned, and the approximate year of their original publication:Rich and Poor (1898) - Helen BosanquetCapital (1867) - Karl MarxPolitical Economy (1837) - Francis Wayland The National Revenues (1888) - Albert Shaw

Send us a text In this episode, Jeff and Scott talk with Anders Anderson, a finance professor at the Stockholm School of Economics about, his research evaluating Sweden’s nationwide e-bike subsidy. The program successfully doubled e-bike sales, but had only a modest impact on reducing car use—far less than survey responses suggested. People bought b-bikes, then didn't really use them. When accounting for actual emissions reductions, the cost of carbon abatement was around $800 per ton, which most people agree is more than the social cost of carbon. We discuss why the policy wasn’t cost-effective and what better subsidies might look like.

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat for a third time with BlueJ CEO Ben Alarie about new innovations in tax research using artificial intelligence, especially how these tools are being used by tax practitioners, the efficiency gains to using them, and how BlueJ goes about continually improving these tax research tools.

Send us a textIn this episode, Scott and Jeff chat with Ruth Braunstein about her recent book "My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America" wherein we discuss complicated issues related to using tax dollars to fund controversial issues like abortion and war. We discuss taxpayer resistance. We chat about the complexities that arise in government use of taxpayer dollars when the underlying population is extremely diverse.

Send us a textJeff and Scott chat with Kathleen Thomas, a UNC tax law professor, about a recent proposal to allow businesses to have a standard deduction, rather than track expenses. Kathleen explains how this proposal would simplify compliance with and administration of the tax code. 

Send us a textThe House Ways and Means Committee has pass The One Big Beautiful Bill the TOBBB). Knowing this was coming up, Jeff invited Scott to go on a Tax Chats road trip, but, got rejected--Scott was too busy. So, Jeff watched the process from a  distance. Jeff discusses what he observed, and Jeff and Scott discuss the contents of the bill, for far as it was passed by the House Ways and Means Committee.