Since 2007, and apparently well below the radar, the safety net has expanded radically. The benefits available to those who do not work are sharply higher, and likely explain a good deal of the high unemployment we still see today. Staying home and collecting a government check has never been so attractive.

If you want redistribution, you better first produce growth. Which the Obama Democrats' policies have failed to do.

In "Winner-Take-All Politics," Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson discuss the root of public opinion of the stimulus package, the health care bill, and the financial regulation law.

The federal tax system is highly progressive, with the highest-income 1 percent of the population paying one-quarter of all federal taxes.

Which politicians do you trust more to micromanage your health care: federal or state? That’s the false choice presented by two versions of “federalism” intended to divide responsibility for health policy between the national government and the states.

Social Security may be more regressive than progressive, redistributing income from the poor to the rich.

The authors assess the importance of knowing as much as possible about how the current Social Security system redistributes money in practice and to whom.

Anew study, Income Redistribution from Social Security (AEI Press, February 2005), argues that Social Security may not redistribute money from the rich to the poor.