Biden’s Gambit: Advancing Racial Equity While Relying on a Race-Neutral Tax Code by Goldburn P. Maynard Jr. published by The Yale Law Journal Forum (1/2022).
The American Rescue Plan Act was both a major infusion of economic aid to lowincome and middle-class Americans and an opportunity for the Biden Administration to keep its promise to promote racial equity. This Essay analyzes ARPA’s major provisions to determine their potential impact on racial equity. It argues that the Biden Administration should do more to tackle racial wealth inequality and the structural issues in the tax code that allow those at the top of the income distribution to benefit disproportionately from tax subsidies. It also underscores the larger challenge of achieving racial equity in the face of courts, particularly conservative judges, that treat race-based policies designed to counteract racial inequities as discriminatory.
