Book excerpt: Carrie Manning's illuminating book examines how policies to limit taxation at state and local levels in the US have direct and lasting consequences for equity, accountability, and ultimately for democracy. Tax structures embed and reproduce an implicit social contract between government and citizens, creating path-dependent outcomes that produce unintended consequences which are rarely traced back to state and local revenue models. This book combines historical American political development with the study of state formation. It provides a clear-eyed investigation into the past, present, and future of the social contract between America's local governments and citizens.