Who Gets What from Government

Who Gets What from Government by Benjamin I. Page investigates one of the central questions of American democracy: how public policy redistributes income and why policies take the shapes they do. Bridging economics and political science, Page assesses how taxation, spending, regulation, and law affect ordinary citizens, and what political forces—institutions, interests, and ideas—determine outcomes. Written with clarity for students, scholars, and general readers alike, the book explains technical debates in accessible language while never shying away from the complexity of fiscal policy and inequality. Drawing on summers of research at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty and long engagement with colleagues in economics and political science, Page situates questions of redistribution at the intersection of efficiency and equity, markets and politics. He reviews the strongest economic arguments on both sides, from welfare economics to critiques of fiscal incidence, and develops his own account of the persistent tension between fairness and power in policy design. Supported by commentary from leading thinkers in inequality, welfare policy, and democratic theory, the book offers both a careful synthesis of existing research and a forceful argument about the political roots of inequality in the United States. For readers concerned with how governments actually shape economic life, Who Gets What from Government provides a rigorous, empirically informed, and politically attuned analysis. It remains an important contribution to debates on income distribution, public policy, and the democratic possibilities for a more equitable society. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.