On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with sociologist Dr. Ruth Braunstein about money and morality. They discuss her new book, My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America, which was published on April 15, or Tax Day–an auspicious day that Braunstein calls an American “ritual.” 

Braunstein says that tax paying is the most significant way that everyday people interact with the federal government. And people invest a lot of symbolic value (in addition to material value) in the act of tax paying. Groups like war tax resisters and anti-abortion activists resist paying taxes because they understand the use of their tax dollars to be profane and out of line with their moral values. But the federal government has largely accommodated the concerns of the antiabortion activists.

They also talk about the idea of a “moral” budget and the long line of social justice advocates that have tried to push for the federal government to address inequality through its budgeting process. As DOGE under the leadership of Elon Musk has been slashing federal agencies and the Republican’s reconciliation bill is poised to deliver tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy, they also discuss where our tax dollars are being put to use these days. Meanwhile a new wave of war tax resisters like Taxpayers Against Genocide is growing in opposition to the US’s funding of genocide in Gaza.

Braunstein asks listeners to consider what services they’re proud that their tax dollars make possible, like public media, public schools, the National Weather Service, National Institutes of Health, libraries, and so much more. 

Ruth Braunstein is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, where she leads the Meanings of Democracy Lab. Her new book, My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America, delves into how paying taxes became a moral battleground in public life. She’s also the host of When The Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism, a new documentary podcast spotlighting evangelical leaders who are resisting political extremism in their church and the country.

Featured image of the cover of My Tax Dollars, published by Princeton University Press.

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