america," and lucas morrel's "lincoln and the american founding." and, of course, dear friends of the national constitution center, let us together read the works of shakespeare. thank you so much, and see you soon. bye. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] c-span's washington journal, every day we take your calls on the air on the news of the day and discussed policy issues that impact you. this is our annual authors week. discusses and author "on the road in trump's america." of medicine at the university of michigan on how americans celebrated christmas during the 1918 flu pandemic. and then, a syndicated columnist on politics and the year in review. watching c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern friday morning, and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments,

text and tweets. continuing on with our authors week, we are joined by jim tankersley. he's the author of the book, "the riches of this land, the untold true story of america's middle class." thank you for joining us this week. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: almost anybody, if you tell them the term middle-class, they have their own version of what that looks like. what does the theme of your book reflect? guest: there are a lot of ways you can define the middle-class. for a lot of people you define it by income. how much do you make per year, and does that put you into a certain band of people in the middle of the united states. but i like to define it somewhat differently because to me, the middle-class is all about economic security, about being able to feel safe and stable and comfortable within your economic situation. week where art of lot of families are playing

board games with their families, and i like to identify the middle-class by a board game, the game of life. a game where you roll around the board, get an education and get a job and get married, a house and a car, and retirement security. the entire game basically is all around getting these pieces of life that just make you feel a little less vulnerable, a little less imperiled by the sweeps and dangers of the board. that is how i thing about being in the middle class in america. if you can afford health care and a car and a house, being able to buy your own house, save for retirement and send your kids to school, that is the sort of economic security i think defines the middle-class, and the people who are trying to get that security are sort of aspirational he middle-class. host: that is usually tied to jobs. one of the things you do in the book is ask a question to get things rolling.

you write this. "it is the most important question in american public life. it was amid the rise of populism in the early 2010s that what donald trump did the presidency. now -- incially so 2010s that's what donald trump are the presidency in 2016, and it is especially so now that the country has fallen into the swiftest recession the nation in history, one that laid bare the fragility of the vast majority of workers' lives and dreams in the 21st century." people for alot of long time in the united states, manufacturing was a real ticket to that sort of job, particularly workers without college degrees. but it is certainly not the only way to get it. there were a lot of other good, middle-class jobs. white-collar jobs, jobs in offices or other blue-collar

jobs in manufacturing that have gone away, that have been automated or outsourced over the last several decades, and what we see now in the united states is that a lot of people have lost jobs that maybe felt sort of on the borderline of good. they were starting to pay enough to maybe accrue some of that. maybe they were certain to have benefits, and now they have lost it. of thisirst half recession has been to bring jobs back, but the equally important task is to bring good jobs back. i think for a lot of people, it goes beyond that. it is jobs that give you a sense of purpose, that make you feel like your full talents as a worker are being used, and that you are able to contribute in a way that not just helps you earn money, but helps america and its economy function really actively and to work in its best possible way so that we can all build a better, stronger, faster growing

economy for ourselves and our children. host: portions of the book look back to the period after world war ii. guest: i think it looms large in the american psyche and american economic history as the best of expansion of the middle class, maybe anywhere ever. there are certainly lots of interlocking reasons for that boom. the big one is that after the war, there is this big opportunity for the united states to start rebuilding and sell ahe world industrially around rebuilding the western world, which we did. that is the story you hear a lot. it is a very white male centered

story, but it is not the whole story, and i would argue it is not even the real story. the big story of what happens in the united states economy and what is able to generate the strong growth on top of low unemployment that pulled millions of americans into the middle class is that the economy started to tear down barriers that had held back a huge amount of workers from actually contributing to the country. , most of thear ii high talented, high skill jobs in america were held by white men, and frankly most of the jobs. but then through the war effort, which brought women into the workforce, and the aftermath, which brought millions more in, through the hard work of civil rights in the ensuing decades that reduced barriers not just for women of all races, but for men of color, black men in particular, the country is able to bring millions of workers who

were previously underutilized, undereducated, undervalued into , give them better jobs, and their contribution raised the productivity of the country, and economic research tells us it was this engine that created this magic, nation -- this magic combination which pulled millions into the middle class. the story of the postwar boom is and i think itt, is something we can replicate, even coming out of this recession. we have a lot of very talented people. women, men of color, white men without college degrees who are being underutilized, and we have a chance to put them all back to work in a much better way and create a second world war ii

style boom in the middle class in this country again. host: if you want to ask him questions about the themes of this book, you can do so. we have divided the lines by economic earnings. if you earn below $50,000, it is (202) 748-8000. between $50,000 and $100,000, (202) 748-8001. over $100,000, (202) 748-8002. tweet us your thoughts, text us, and post on our facebook page. you mentioned two categories, and i think of three as well, when it comes to the economy thriving because you said in part, the economy thrives after world war ii in large part made it easier for people previously shut out to get economic opportunity. talk about the last category. guest: immigrants are very important as well. they were a crucial source of innovation.

what we know overtime from the united states economy, what research shows us is that immigrant entrepreneurs create businesses, bring new ideas, develop new ideas. they make the economy work better because they have these fromy innovative traits united states. in particular, the one to bring that innovative entrepreneurial spirit at all levels of the economy have been crucial to the development of our country and our middle-class. we are in a real jam moving forward if we don't have that. we will have a less innovative economy, a less dynamic economy, and given the way that workforce is shaping up, we are not going to sustain the levels of growth that politicians talk about as being necessary. 3%, 4%, 5%, whatever you want to

aim for growth to keep the economy roaring, if we can get it to that level. you need workers to do that, and we don't have enough of them who are here now. there is not a finite pool of jobs in the united states. it is an ever expanding pool as the economy grows, and we are people coming into help create those jobs. for all of those reasons, immigrants, the economic research is really clear. they play a crucial role, and i think they are an important part now as well. specifically, can any of that be applied to what is going on today? guest: some of it is really basic. in the time before world war ii, a lot of white women in particular didn't work in the formal workforce. educatedhem were not

to the same level as wightman. -- as white men. that started to change, where women are now the most educated set of graduates every year in the united states. barriers forocial them to go to work was a big deal. raking down the social barriers for them to go to college was a big deal. you can do a lot more now to invest in helping women, ,articularly lower income women who we know have a harder time completing community college, four-year colleges because it is so economically difficult to balance life at the low-end of the income spectrum and going to school. we can do a lot more to support them going forward, and we can ofa lot more to keep women all degree status throughout the economy engaged in the workforce throughout their lives. i think this is a real lesson of this and back -- this pandemic. one of the real reasons we

struggled as we had this incredibly skilled group of then who have fallen out of labor force entirely when they have children, through basically res and through the failure of policies to support women as they try to take leave and return to the workforce, so better policies come more affordable childcare, and more support within companies for women when they take leave with children, to bring them back without missing a beat, would be really important to put more of the executive jobs, the high-powered jobs that you don't want them knocked off that track maybe before they had kids. these are couple of things that are echoes from that early period, but i thing the opportunity is there. host: our first call from you comes from geraldine in georgia. thank you. caller: hello, and thank you for

taking my call, and for c-span. i want to say please let steve scully come back next year. , i want tokersley ask you a question about this forgotten man. i don't understand how these people that say they are at black, and you look people's history who was brought here to this country and had absolutely nothing. host: geraldine, could you clarify what you want our guest to answer specifically? caller: yes, i want him to enter the question about this forgotten man, forgotten person in this country. guest: sure. host: thank you, geraldine. go ahead. guest: i think what the caller

is alluding to is that so much of our political discourse right now, a lot of white workers have cast themselves as forgotten, whereas i think it is correct that black workers truly are the ones who, throughout history, have been left behind, denied opportunity for so long, and really have never gotten the same opportunity as particularly elite whites have gotten. i think we can and should as a country deal with both. it is both really crucially true that we have a dearth of opportunity comparatively for black americans. i talk a lot in the book about that. the main character is a lack man from north carolina, and i talk about the need in the hope that we can tap into that potential for opportunity to create more opportunity for black workers in ways that policymakers have not addressed in the past. i also think it is true we have

left behind a category of white workers without college degrees, and they are the ones who have gotten a lot of attention from politicians because they have swung so hard politically from one party to the other over the last several election cycles. book,5, i document in the we massively overwrote the story of the left behind white worker because it wasn't an important story, but because we missed the story and we didn't write nearly enough about the left behind, forgotten black worker or latino worker. i think in 2020, we did better, but still not perfectly. in some ways, the outcome of the 2020 election is much more of a story of working-class black voters than working-class white voters. working-class black voters helped deliver the primaries to joe biden and helped power his victory november. -- his victory in november. we are still a long way off from

as the black voters forgotten workers. and i don't like the forgotten man because i think women are often forgotten in these conversations as well. i think it is really important that we keep in mind that workers of all races in the working-class have a lot more income and right now than they them, butat divides historically speaking, we have just a massive gap in opportunity, even among those workers by rates. that is some that we have to pay attention to from policy. host: from the book, you write, "if we want to revive the middle-class, we need to know how we got the boom after world war ii. we need to start with the classic white tail of america and fill out the part that corrects the lies we have now."

hat is part of the book by tankersley, who is with us now. we go now to jim. caller: i love your show. today is my lucky day. conundrum.it of a host: ok, jim. go ahead. caller: first of all, merry christmas and happy holidays to both of you. host: we got that part because her. go ahead. caller: i already turned in my christmas list and didn't have your book on their, so i am going to have to resubmit that to santa, but i will get a copy of it. i want to ask you a question. you talk about the middle-class. i think that is one of the history pieces missing. unionization, the state of any the pastf indiana in 30 to 40 years have been

dismantling unions, and i think the unionization of the middle-class had made it better workers, especially towards retirement. if you could expand on the little bit -- expand on that a little bit. and you talk about bring back the post-world war ii mugging class motif -- post-world war ii arcing class motif. how important are unions to that? 9 i think it is a -- guest: i think it is a great question. we know unions certainly played a great role in that postwar industrial age in the building of the middle class. one of the other characters in the book is a guy who i really enjoyed spending time with over the years, a man named bob thompson in southern california who had a union job in a rocket plant, basically. it gave him a life and a pension that is very difficult for the

kids he talks to today, when they come to his historical society, to imagine. i think the loss of those union jobs has played a real role in this decline of the middle class. part of the difficulty with that is it has rep as i did a shift of the economy from very unionized sectors like manufacturing to traditionally less unionized sectors. it is going to be interesting to see the biden adminstration has made a real emphasis on unionization. i think they are going to try to do some things to make it easier for workers in service industries to unionize. we will see what kind of results those bring. but given the low union rates in the country right now, part of what i asked thousand the book is the importance of trying to generate the conditions that give all workers bargaining power with their employer,

whether they are in a union or not. what that means is if we have historically low unemployment and the economy is growing, workers can demand more benefits , higher salaries. we were starting to see this at the tail end of the pre-pandemic part of this administration after a long expansion that started out of president obama and continued under president trump. we were able to see if you have low unemployment and growth, workers really can demand much higher raises and get them. that doesn't have all the benefits of the unionization for sure, but it gives some of the crucial income benefits of it, and other things. see what sortwill of strides the biden adminstration can make on union issues. we will also i think see if they can generate that formula of unemployment,

which i think is really important for helping all workers, whether they are in a union or not. host: if you are asks a question for the modern-day people. "how can they get jobs when they are all locked down?" guest: i think that is another big problem here. i have been writing a lot about this in my day job at "the times" over the last several months. locked down sort of covers all isner of things, but it true that is long as this virus is raging and people are not going out and doing the kind of economic activities they had ise with the virus, that more correlated with what the virus is doing then with any restrictions that are being put on. but i think we are going to see what that is like. in the early waves, that is what it looked like. i think that makes it really hard.

if you are someone who is having to choose between going out and possibly getting sick to working a job where there is low demand from consumers anyway, that is really tough. i think we are going to see hopefully over the next few , people will be able to get by as the vaccine is distributed, and the economy starts rolling back -- starts roaring back as people are able to get outside and do the things they were doing before, and allow whole industries to come back. that will then generate the activity that brings everybody else. but i think this virus has been an absolute crushing blow to the middle class and to american workers across the board who have lost their jobs, while people like me who have been able to work from home because their jobs allow it have not

been hit nearly as badly economically. i think that has been just a really unfortunate and difficult part of this recession and recovery, and hopefully if all goes well with vaccine deployment, we could come out of that in the coming months. host: here's michael, cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. merry christmas and happy new year. -- well,uckily everybody i know, family members under $100,000 range. out of every dollar they earn and i have earned in my lifetime , i've paid, at least since the deal in the 1980's, i've paid andcents to social security $135,000 thereabouts in w-2

wages. everyone gets a 6.2% tax cut. unfortunately i have ever reached that. what do you think is the appropriate level of income that should be for social security? guest: thank you for the question. her christmas -- merry christmas. it is christmas eve, and we are getting into social security tax rates, and i love it. if you are looking at the solvency of the social security program over time, one of the proposals that certainly seems --have bipartisan support not among everyone, certainly -- stopsting the income cap imposing social security taxes after that threshold of income. to rankif you were order the list of possible things for what could get done in washington, that is very high on the list. i thing it is much more likely

to get done then, for example, immediate changes to the benefits structure, although who actualhat any sort of deal on social security would to shore upng like advances long-term. but it is something that i hear a decent amount about when i am talking to people about the book that seems unfair to people because we have an otherwise, in the income tax system, for your labor income, it is an aggressive system. you're supposed to be higher rates the more you earn, and social security works the opposite, where it is flat and drops off. so i think it is absolutely on moveable as a top possible for lawmakers in washington if and when they move to shore up social security finances. host: if you are just joining us, the book is "the riches of

this land, the untold true story of america's mid class." to write come up and needs -- you write, "the group that has long since abuse to the rules of the economy and used it for its broad gain. in overly broad terms, we call group white men with college the economic hierarchy. became of the things i convinced of as i pursued it -- i'm grateful for the advantages i've had in my life and i'm grateful to my parents, my university, the places i have been able to work in my life. and i feel it is important to point out that i have been able to climb the economic ladder, in part, because of having -- i

largelyin small town, a white small town in oregon. a lot of my high school classmates were really smart, worked hard, and they did not go to college because they had a different career track. they were better with their hands. and they have not been able to have the same economic advantages because of the way the economy has worked and the way the policymakers have managed people along the way. i think about that a lot. i think it is important to point out that if you look back over american history, what is now sort of the group that is the elite, the college degree holders, but really over time it's like a sliver of white men at the top of the income spectrum, they have managed to hold onto a huge amount of benefits and pass them along to their children, pass the

opportunities along to their children. and so often they're able to send their kids to better schools, get them into better colleges, and get them through networks into better jobs. aree networks, they informal and controlled by small groups of people, and have not been open to outsiders. that makes it hard if you are a young black woman trying to climb that ladder. it's harder for you. i think it is important to point out those who it is harder for, and who it is easier for, and it that we need to adjust those policies because i think we want to live in a country where everybody has an equal shot. we had believed it was possible for a long time. i believe that. i believe it is possible to have that equality in opportunity. see us there cs right now. jim tankersley -- host: we have a viewer asking

the question, "would health care for all benefit the middle class? would it allow upward mobility? would it allow opportunities for entrepreneurism?" guest: i am not a health care policy expert, so i will caveat this with that. i have wonderful colleagues that spend a lot of time thinking about that very question. i certainly would say that a system in which people's jobs were not necessarily linked to their health care, whether it is a government system, free market system, or whatever, would make it easier to pursue higher paying jobs and better opportunities. there's a worry that if you are in a job for the health care, you are less likely to leave it. if everybody had access to affordable health care, it would be easier both to switch jobs, but also to start your own ofiness or to do any kind

entrepreneurial activity that would really benefit the economy. or take chances, basically. it's harder to take chances if you are right about that security blanket. people who feel economically secure tend to be more likely to take risks and to be entrepreneurs and innovators. i think that is important. so, a health care system, whatever it looks like, that is able to deliver more of that security or less money for people, i think would be important for people. and i am not endorsing any particular health care program here, but i would say that i think again that everybody agrees that if we could design a system that was more flexible, and had less expensive health care and was affordable for yeah, that would be positive for the economy. host: you are on with jim

tankersley. caller: thank you. i am glad that somebody mentioned that the tax structure, where wealthy people are allowed to keep percentage-wise a lot more of their money without needing to put it in the economy. and i think that that has a negative effect on the amount of money that is available for our government to invest in the people. an example, we have a shortage of doctors. we have a new shortage of nurses. in order to get that education i'm inand i noticed -- silicon valley and there are open becauset are we do not have people to fill them.

when reason is because the cost of education is so exorbitant. some people will go ahead and take the chance and get student loans, but then they are saddled with their student loans well into their 40's. so that is money that these or that is taken out of the middle damper,here it's like a basically come on growth. damper, basically, on growth. and we don't seem to have large-scale projects, like the interstate highway system as an example. our transportation system is it'sfragmented and, um basically old, as far as technology is concerned. youe if you go to korea, have these beautiful high-speed rail systems and they move

people from one end of the country to the other. we are not investing in these types of things. host: you put a lot out there for our guests. we will let him respond -- guest. we will do him respond. guest: it is a good question and i appreciate it. i think i will start with the very first point that was made about the ways in which the wealthy are able to pay lower taxes and keep money out of the economy. it's something i have been talking about with economists for a long time. we tax capital gains, investment income, the dividends, at a lower rate than we tax labor income, for higher and people in the united states. -- higher end people in the united states. it was on purpose. they thought we needed a bias towards encouraging investment

in the tax code for people, but i have talked to even conservative economists who have said, listen, that is rewarding legacy wealth and it dampens consumer spending and other things. so we should equalize labor and capital tax rates, so that essentially no matter how you earn a dollar, whether it is from a stock and a dividend, or you went to work for an extra hour this month, depending on your income range it is taxed the same way. so, a progressive system that texas labor and capital at the same rate. xes labor andat ta capital at the same rate. that is, there is a way to equalize the taxes, and you can bring one up or bring one down. but it would incentivize the economy. and that could lead to more spending, more growth and perhaps, depending on how you

landed it, more tax -- lend it, got more tax revenue for education or investing in large and researcher programs. you know, both of which productivitynsider enhancing and it would be an attractive investment you might look at. host: how would you characterize the incoming administration, what they want to do for those at the higher income levels and how it might impact them and of the overall economy? guest: it is pretty straightforward. they want to raise taxes at the top on people making more than $4000 -- $400,000. they can raise rates on capital. a small tax increase on labor. and business tax increases, they want to tax corporations more, particularly multinational corporations through some

mechanisms related to partial the taxs or tweaks of cuts from donald trump. and they want to take that money and they want to spend it on infrastructure. they want to do a big infrastructure plan that includes a bunch of clean energy spending to reduce carbon emissions, by putting people to work. they have a lot of plans. this is the largest amount of proposed taxes and spending and dollar figures we have ever seen from a democratic presidential nominee. it's very unclear. a lot depends on what happens in the runoff elections in georgia next month. but if they do not win both of bem, they will be -- it will highly unlikely they will be able to do the tax side of the agenda because republicans seem unwilling to vote to raise taxes. even if they do win those, they will have a very narrow majority

in the senate, and they will be limited to the degree they could implement that entire agenda. that said, washington is in the mood now where the deficits a not matter as much as they did. there are real economic reasons for that, the interest rates are very low. so you might see them do some of the spending, the infrastructure, that the proposed, with less of a pay for than the president elect proposed in the campaign. i think it will be one of the big stories of the next year. effortsy, the virus and to stimulate the economy will be the biggest right away. along with efforts to rollout the vaccine and the health policy angles of the virus. but, yeah, i think that whether they can implement what they see as a medium term agenda for the middle class, which also includes a lot of racial and

gender-based opportunity opening initiatives, but it is unclear how they will be able to do that or what they can do bags they could've orders. they have a lot of -- by executive orders. they have a lot of ambitions and so we do not know how much they will be able to fulfill any of them. host: is there enough money at the higher income levels to satisfy all their desires? guest: i do not think it is limited by money. it might be limited by priorities. it's true that if you are just trying to dollar for dollar pay health carew, a plan, if researcher plan and a bunch of other things solely by raising taxes on the rich, you would run up to constraints on how much you could raise. signaling itn is does not need to pay for things dollar for dollar right now. and a lot of economists are

going in does not need to. i think more importantly, there are things they can do that do not cost a lot of money, or things that congress could do. opening up opportunities to people does not have to mean just spending tax dollars. aggressively pursuing antidiscrimination efforts inside companies. that is something the government can do. it could mean doing a lot of ways in which you invest existing dollars to more equitably distribute them. there's a lot they can do without massive amounts of spending, but there's also a lot that does require a lot of spending. so, again, this is why i say prioritization may be the most important thing. what we saw with president obama is he had big plans when he came in, and he was able to do a couple of them, and health care law, stemless bill and then some

regulation -- a stimulus bill and then some regulation. that was about it. i would argue that joe biden has more sprawling and social programs designed, and he will have a much smaller majority, if he has a majority in the senate at all, than president obama did, so there are real questions on whether he will be able to implement those policies. host: here is mike in new york. go ahead. caller: i wonder if we could -- if you could give me some thoughts. the first thing is social security would be in better shape if they had made some of that money available for the lending, like to the student loans, even at a low percent. that would have benefited the whole country. the second thing is, the problems we have outside of the virus can almost always be

pointed directly at lobbying. i cannot think of a single item, whether it be people dying from inacco, the situation we are economically, uh, the large tax breaks for the rich, everything henefiting them -- on bot sides, there is so much money going into congress that the situation is so lopsided toward the rich that the average person has been on the losing end of this. the other thing i would mention offenderp is the big here, but it is on both sides -- the gop label themselves as conservative, and the real thing is conservative now stands for you conservative wealth for the wealthy. and i wonder if you could elaborate on that. guest: sure. thank you so much. i think it is clear, on the last

point, that the struggles of the middle class have spanned decades, including all manners of party control. there have been times when republicans held the entire government, when democrats held the entire government, and when there has been a divided government. we have only had one stretch of middle-class growth, like really rapid middle-class growth in that time and it was the second half of the clinton administration in the 1990's. that was a divided government. but we have not seen -- you are right, we do not have a lobbying group that's just typical american workers, who get together and their only lobby is there vote. and that is important. it matters. but they are so often just sort of handed -- of pandered to, then not delivered to.

this hit home for me when i was a reporter in ohio, early in my career, before the recession or financial crisis, when you could see the industrial decline of the state. and i recounted in the book that i was driving across the state covering a senate race and gubernatorial race, and i stopped at one of dozens of rallies i was going to and i watched the eyes glaze over as they listened to a gubernatorial candidate promised to bring the jobs back, because they had heard it for years. they had heard it for more than years. and they have still been hearing it for this whole time. and i think that people have become cynical about it. it has led to poisonous things in our politics. when people are promised the things they had can be restored, or opportunity can be reopened and it is not, they get angry. you are right, they do not have a well organized, lobbying group

to punish lawmakers with campaign donation purposes. but it is also true that politicians have to be responsive to the voters, otherwise they get huge backlash effects. i think that is what we saw in 2016, that the election of president trump was in part -- there were other things going on and i go through the range of but in the boat -- book, they felt they were lied to and it they bought the idea that donald trump was a businessman who knew how to do it. who takesave a viewer us back in history, saying that "if you brought back the tax levels of the 1940's and 1950's, you could build infrastructure again." guest: i think it is important to note a couple things. i do not think correlation is causation.

i do not think we had a booming middle-class because of the tax structure then, but that is not to say it was in spite of it either. i am saying that may be not the variable that was the big driver there. it may be true we could be raising more revenue. there are problems with that tax code also. i certainly think that a better, more efficient tax code could raise a lot more revenue, including more revenue from the top, which is probably what the viewer is getting at in the 1940's and 1950's, when it was higher at the top. so there are better ways to raise money, more efficiently in more economically, and if he wanted to raise more money, to get more revenue. host: john in florida, hello. caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. i wish your guest would explain thesituation in alaska with

citizens getting checks as part of the exploitation of the natural resources of oil, and how that can be applied in the lower 48. i'm wondering if you have a state like florida, where you have a lot of sunshine, a lot of tourists, and if the citizens were in that kind of economy, could betaxation spread among the citizens, because they contribute to the surge in visitors. and that could also apply to puerto rico, hawaii and the virgin islands, in my opinion. how does that work? how can we apply it in the lower 48? thank you. guest: that is a fun question. i actually would recommend everyone, if you are still looking for a book to give at

you would like something on this topic, my friend annie lowery has a book that came out a while back. it's on universal basic income. and the idea of giving everyone money, which alaska does in this fund related to the oil resources there. and she goes through all of the arguments about it. and she makes compelling stuff. so, i have written less about it than she has, but it is a really -- i would outsource my answer to her. specifically to the point of youism, a tourism state, i could -- i take that you could dedicate a hotel tax or the revenue from a hotel tax straight to sending a check to

every resident of florida, puerto rico or hawaii in the same way that those estates often dedicate revenues from tourism taxes to other things. you could send it rather straight to people. obviously, the concern many of the states have is if you make the taxes too high, you become uncompetitive with other states that do not have those taxes. if florida has one, but hawaii doesn't, it could be more attractive for people to go to hawaii. but the mechanics are it would work exactly that way. host: the houses is having a debate on capitol hill over the size of economic impact checks, $600 moving to $2000 being considered today in the house. as far as the dollar figure, what does it do economically -- would it make a difference? guest: i think it does make a difference. it's true for the people on the

lower end, who have lost jobs or have lost income from their jobs, but not fully lost their jobs, in particular, it could be a really big benefit because they are the ones that are struggling the most in this economy. it is probably much less effective to send checks to people who have not lost any income. we have seen many of those, a lot of that money has been saved. areou are someone who, you in a middle-class family that has been able to work from home or you have been able to go to work safely, continually at your job, and you have your same salary and hours, and you're suddenly getting a $2000 check -- that's wonderful for you personally, but for the macroeconomy is less likely that you will spend it right away, than if you spent in money on other things. and i thing that that is -- when i talk to economists about the

stimulus package, one thing that several of them expressed has been that the discussion around it has been centered on the size of the checks, when it is things like the additional unemployment benefits, additional aid to businesses impacted by shutdowns, or even additional aid to state and local governments, which is not largely in this bill, that many economists considered to have a higher multiplier and more of an effect on the overall health of the economy than checks that help some people a great deal and others just sort of socked the money away. host: a few more minutes with our guest. mark, go ahead with your question or comment. caller: thank you. thank you for writing your book, jim. i tried to look up your information to see what your family roots were, as far as organize the labor.

it seems to me that organized labor, of which i am a member, and the son and grandson of a union coalminer. i'm a carpenter myself. but it seems to me that it is folks like us, especially back in the day, we were able to educate our children and let them go to college. you seem to be a sound that may have grown up and have fought for the workers, instead of turning your back on them. i ran off and joined the marine corps and became a combat engineer and i've also worked at u.s. embassies, so i knew that benghazi was not the embassy in tripoli, for those who are so confused. i swung a hammer as a civilian, could never make more than $12 an hour in florida. within a year or so, i was in new jersey, but still resided in florida, but i was making three times those wages.

i would work a 12 hour shift and we made doubletime on sundays. and i thought it was a millionaire. it has been a gift to me and my own personal life, but think what happened in our country as we got confused when you listen to the current president capture people with the language, and they thought that he was the person that stood up for them. but i would ask people who still think that that political party, they do not stand for organized labor, they want to make the country a right to work nation. and i wish -- host: i will have to leave it there. go ahead. guest: very briefly, i am a guild member at the new york times. i have worked for union and nonunion places in my career, so full disclosure there. my mother is a retired school librarian and was a member of a teachers union. those are my family ties to unions.

i think that in general, what the caller brings up is the importance of the dignity of work. we hear about it a lot, but i just want to recognize and appreciate the caller, who works really hard and has been able to make a good wage out of it. i think everybody should be able to do that. our economy works better when people who work hard are rewarded for the fruits of their labor. wet: james in albuquerque, are running short on time, so go ahead. caller: i see labor as having no say in washington. the corporations have all the say. inyou had codetermination the corporate work room, then labor would finally have a say. that's my comment. thanks for taking my call. guest: it is an interesting idea, something that is done more in europe than here. but i will say that one thing

that has really struck me watching joe biden's transition events in the last month, is how much he talks about how he is a union guy and he will put union people at the table in his administration. and when i talk to people within the labor movement, they seem optimistic about that. something to wait and see. he's also been talking to business groups. one place he told a bunch of ceos, about a month ago, that labor would have a seat at the table in his administration, but he would be talking to business, too. we will see how that plays out. host: nelson in florida. good morning. caller: good morning. im a retired firefighter and was an active member of the union, so i am not antiunion. haveg said that, i also read extensively about history and the economy.

we have to behat careful what we wish for. the vast majority of tax revenue that has gone into the coffers of the united states has been from the wealthy. trump,or to president 30%top 3% were putting in of all taxes. in the top 25% were putting 85% of all taxes. have beenttom 45% paying no taxes at all. host: we will have to leave it there. i apologize for that. guest: he is talking about income taxes. the bottle 45% do pay taxes, payuding -- bottom 45% do taxes, including taxes in their communities.

we do have a progressive system that raises much money from the rich. we also have an economy that delivers much higher spoils to the rich and then everyone else. we have to keep both of those things in mind when we are talking about policy. host: you write about what happened in history and what it means for the current folks in the middle class. when do you see things changing? what has to happen in order to make the changes? guest: i think that there is a lot that we can do. i lay out some proposals in the book, but the most important thing to do as a country is to have a values change. it's hard. i know i sound naive, but if we could dedicate ourselves to finishing the work of civil rights and to truly equalizing opportunity for women and for men, for black and latino and other nonwhite americans, and white americans, if we could commit ourselves to building a country like that where the

workers joined together across race and gender lines and demand better pay, i think we would have a stronger economy that would work for everyone. host: our guest works for the new york times as a tax reporter and is the author of "the riches of this land: the untold, true story of america's middle class." jim tankersley joining us as part of >> c-span's washington journal. everyday, we take your calls live on the air and we discussed policy issues that impact you. this week is our annual authors week series. coming up friday morning, daniel allen discusses his book on the road in trump's america. of howard markel, director the center for the history of medicine at the university of michigan on how americans celebrated christmas during the 1918 flu pandemic. columnist syndicated

talks about politics and the year in review. watch c-span's washington journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern on friday morning. >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today, we are brought to you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. next, first lady melania trump received the white house christmas tree at the north portico.-- north ♪