Summer School 2: How taxes change behavior and the economy

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We all know the government uses taxes to pay for things. But what about using taxes to control behavior? This week on Summer School, Professor Darrick Hamilton of The New School, helps us explore the true power of the tax code. Can taxes help lift people out of poverty? What about saving the planet?

Get tickets to our August 18th live show and graduation ceremony at The Bell House, in Brooklyn. (Planet Money+ supporters get a 10 percent discount off their tickets. Listen to the July 8th bonus episode to get the discount code!)

The series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Eric Mennel. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Emily Crawford and Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Robert Rodriguez.

Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from the Financial Times.
0:02.7	The FT News Briefing brings you the top stories in business and finance all in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.
0:10.0	Every morning, hear the stories shaping the economy, markets, and more.
0:14.7	Listen to the FT News Briefing, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:19.0	Hey, everyone, just a quick message before class gets started.
0:22.5	Planet Money Summer School is having a live graduation ceremony and party in New York City
0:27.8	on August 18th.
0:29.2	It's going to be great.
0:30.2	So get your tickets now before the show sells out.
0:33.2	Planet Money Plus supporters get a 10% discount and get early access to summer school episodes all summer long.
0:39.9	Check out the show notes for a link to buy tickets and to subscribe to Planet Money Plus.
0:45.3	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:53.4	Welcome back, class, to Planet Money Summer School, the only economics degree that comes with UV protection for the beach, SPF 50.
1:01.7	This season, we're talking about political economy, which is a fancy way of saying the role that the government has in our economy.
1:08.8	And if you've been paying attention these days, you might have
1:11.2	noticed that the government is all up in every part of our business. Today is class number two,
1:17.3	taxing our way to a brighter tomorrow. I'm Robert Smith. One big reason to pay attention to what
1:24.8	the government is doing is because they are doing it with our money. We ask more of our government and then they ask more of us through our taxes.
1:33.3	At the very beginning of our country, Congress was desperate for money. They levied taxes on imported
1:38.5	goods, yes, a tariff is a tax, on things like whiskey, states taxed property. The first income taxes came to pay for the
1:46.2	Civil War. Corporate taxes and sales taxes appeared in the early 1900s. The main thing taxes do
1:53.1	is raise money. We all know this, right? Fund the military, insurance programs like Medicare and
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 27 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.