The Big Government Conspiracy: Q&A with Steve Malanga of the Manhattan Institute

Today's Tea Party movement germinated from local taxpayer groups focused on issues like school spending and property taxes, says Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the new book, Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer.

Malanga's work focuses on how national trends often grow out of local ones. In his last book, The New New Left, he looked at how a coalition of public-sector unions and government-backed social activists came to control the machinery of local governments. In Shakedown, he shows how this group continued its march all the way to the White House.

Reason.tv's June Arunga sat down with Malanga to talk about how this coalition has pushed government at all levels to the brink of bankruptcy and what reforms are needed to combat its vast influence.

Approximately seven minutes. Shot by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg. Edited by Josh Swain.

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