payers about $4 billion/year) which allows hedge fund managers—some of the richest people in the US—to pay only 15% tax (the capital gains rate) on income they receive from investors, though the money is a paycheck received for services, not investment income. Politics as "organized combat" Though this process came as part of what the authors describe as a "transformation of American government", it has been overlooked by the public, the media, and recent political science studies. They focus on the more entertaining, fast-moving and easy-to-follow "electoral spectacle" of politicians and their campaigns for office, instead of "what the government actually does"—the more complex, and "frankly boring", organization-driven making of laws and policy. But that the latter is what is really important is reflected in how much more money is spent on lobbying (officially $3 billion a year, unofficially much more) than election campaigns", and the growth in corporate public affairs offices in the nation's capital (100 in 1968, 2500 in 1982). These highly effective organizations include business groups like Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, (p. 120) anti-tax groups like Club for Growth and Americans for Tax Reform. (p. 208) Along with them came a new generation of think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute. Officially non-partisan, they focused on "shifting public opinion and policy" in a conservative direction, rather than traditional 'objective' policy advice. The two parties In the story of a winner-take-all America, the authors believe Republicans wear "black hats" and the Democrats "gray hats". The GOP stands strongly united in favor of policies favoring the wealthy, and becoming ever more extreme through the 1990s and 2000s. Their adherence to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans exceeds all the other problems—deficit reduction, or tax cuts for the middle- or upper-middle-class—in cases such as the negotiation of the 1997 deficit reduction budget deal. This is not a position Republicans necessarily admit to, or are unaware of public resistance to. In 2001, internal memos told the Bush administration that "the public prefers spending on things like health care and education over cutting taxes", but the GOP went on with a major cut—one-third of which went to the richest 1% of Americans. GOP leaders "appealed openly to bankers for financial support by touting their opposition to financial reform" following the 2008 financial crisis, while "leading GOP strategists" accused Democrats of bailing out Wall Street