members of congress, well, gucci gulch was a place of, not of celebration, but of despair after 1986 because all of these tax loopholes were closed, rates were brought down in a way that was actually making the tax code more equitable. and that was considered to be a big step forward for the public interest. well, a few years later lobbyists had written a lot of these loopholes back into the tax code. ten years later, you know, you could hardly see any traces of the 1986 tax reform act. almost all of the good government public interest reforms that were put into the tax code in 1986 overcoming the lobbyists have been put back in, you know have been overwhelmed by the day in, day out lobbying to get those tax provisions right back into place. >> quite a cycle. i mean, if you're creating a winner-take-all economy, the winners have more money to contribute to the politicians, who turn it into a winner-take-all politics. i mean it just keeps -- >> right. >> the stories that we try to tell in this book. that there has been a 30-year war in which the sound of the voice of ordinary american

there's gucci gulch for all the lobbyists tell us how to write tax policy.nesses draft the bills and draft them for the republicans. talk how that works. i don't think the public knows some of that. >> they're doing exactly what you're saying. they started out by doing it. the 401(k), it was never intended to be a national retirement plan. it was stuck into the legislation by barbara conable, an upstate new york republican as a favor to xerox and kodak because they had their head offices in his home district. they wanted a tax shelter for retirement payments to executives. that's how it started. they wrote it. it was 401(k) because it's 401 provisions down in the tax code. it was so small nobody knew it was there. you guys didn't know it was there. >> instead of having a solid pension with a guaranteed annuity coming to you, you have 401(k)s which have shrunk in many cases over the years. >> what you got is hundreds of billions of dollars of expenditures are shifted from the corporate books into the pocketbooks and wallets of ordinary people. it's a disaster

there's gucci gulch for all the lobbyists tell us how to write tax policy.ot of businesses draft the bills and draft them for the republicans. talk how that works. i don't think the public knows some of that. >> they're doing exactly what you're saying. they started out by doing it. the 401(k), it was never intended to be a national retirement plan. it was stuck into the legislation by barbara conable, an upstate new york republican as a favor to xerox and kodak because they had their head offices in his home district. they wanted a tax shelter for retirement payments to executives. that's how it started. they wrote it. it was 401(k) because it's 401 provisions down in the tax code. it was so small, nobody knew it was there. you guys didn't know it was there. >> instead of having a solid pension with a guaranteed annuity coming to you, you have 401(k)s which have shrunk in many cases over the years. >> what you got is hundreds of billions of dollars of expenditures are shifted from the corporate books into the pocketbooks and wallets of ordinary people. it's