Basic Facts on Redistribution and the Impact of Obama’s Policies

Introduction

The debate over taxing high-income families to fund the expansion of health care coverage in
America has renewed the broader question of government's role in redistributing income through tax and spending policies. What is missing from this debate is some hard numbers on how much current tax and spending policies redistribute income from some Americans to others and how much the policies advocated by the Obama Administration will change the overall amount of redistribution.

The Tax Foundation's "Fiscal Incidence" project has filled this void by first calculating how much current tax and spending policies are redistributing, then estimating how much President Obama's policies—from taxes to health care to climate change—will alter that redistribution. Simply put, the Fiscal Incidence Model1 compares the total amount of federal taxes families pay (such as income taxes, excise taxes, payroll taxes, etc.) to the total amount of government spending they receive (such as entitlement benefits, defense spending, public works, etc.)