A nation of jerks? -- Taxing and spending, or spending and taxing? -- What's moral philosophy got to do with this? -- A Dutch uncle to all -- The book's ambitions -- The book's data sources -- A closing apology -- pt. I. Our fiscal soul in peril. 1. The happiness of society : Fiscal policy and our happiness ; The instruments of fiscal policy ; Other tools of government ; National welfare is not national income ; What does GDP actually measure? ; Alternative welfare measures ; Equality of opportunity -- 2. Our descent from moral philosophy to narcissism : The villains in this drama ; Adam Smith, moralist and mensch ; Neoliberalism ; Marketplace freedoms, political liberties ; Neoliberal thinking in action ; Did soup kitchens cause the great recession? ; Market triumphalism -- 3. Our dismal report card : Grading our performance ; Who grades us? ; Sagging median incomes, collapsing wealth ; Hours worked ; International comparisons ; Long-term employment trends ; Poverty ; Income and wealth inequality ; Economic mobility ; What have we bought for all this? ; Welfare is the ultimate metric -- 4. Inequality defenders, deniers, and dissemblers : Inequality defenders ; Inequality deniers ; Inequality dissemblers -- 5. The growth fairy : The redistribution ogre ; The growth fairy narrative ; A background of low tax rates ; Empirical studies: Individual labor and savings ; Empirical studies: Business income ; Top-down economic models ; Growth effects of government investment ; Income growth or welfare growth? pt. II. Starving our fiscal soul. 6. A field guide to false fiscal crises : Our Procrustean framing of fiscal policy ; The federal budget, debt, and deficits ; Budget brinksmanship ; The great recession ; Where are we heading? ; A tale of two budgets ; Spending: squeezing blood from the stone -- 7. An overweight government? : A two-fisted spender? ; Military spending ; Healthcare ; Fifty shades of grey ... American: social security ; Fifty shades of grey ... Americans: medicare ; Means-tested income support programs -- 8. Are high taxes killing us? : The United States is a low-tax paradise ; Composition of taxes ; Everyone pays taxes ; Economic incidence of taxation ; Shares of total tax burden ; Effective and marginal tax rates ; A progressive tax system? -- 9. The hidden hand of government spending : Our subsurface spending programs ; Government-subsidized private healthcare ; Economic implications of tax expenditures ; Budget process and presentation concerns ; Evaluating tax expenditures on the merits ; How much is at stake? ; Who benefits? ; The sacred tax cows of personal itemized deductions: it's them or us ; Low taxes yet high pain. pt. III. Reclaiming our fiscal soul. 10. Government investment : The many faces of investment ; Infrastructure ; Education -- 11. Government as insurer : What is insurance? ; Social insurance ; The social value of insurance ; Healthcare insurance ; Other social insurance programs ; Social insurance and "redistribution" ; Aristotelian fallacies and Jason the surfer -- 12. From a progressive tax to a progressive fiscal system : Progressive taxation versus a progressive fiscal system ; What's so good about progressive taxation? ; Tax progressivity in contemporary application ; Two levers of progressivity ; Progressive fiscal systems and happiness ; Progressive fiscal systems and efficiency -- 13. The better base case : Focus of the better base case ; Right-sizing spending ; Right-sizing revenues ; Additional revenues ; Fundamental tax reform: nice but unnecessary ; Really fundamental income tax reform ; The dual business enterprise income tax -- 14. We are better than this : Moving forward ; The pursuit of happiness.