A half century ago, Treasury Assistant Secretary Surrey warned that tax expenditures threatened unmonitored access to the “back door” of the US Treasury. Such withdrawals served as entitlements to the wealthy and powerful.

Among the hundred tax expenditures today, a dozen account for the majority of the drain on the Treasury as they cost over $1 trillion annually. Each is designed to target their generosity to the already affluent and thereby accelerate the concentration of wealth.

In large part due to our past federal policies that overtly targeted their benefits to White households and their posterity, White Americans are the disproportionate beneficiaries of these policies. As such, these twelve tax deductions funnel most of their benefits to White households.

Since 1989, White household wealth has increased by more than $100 trillion. Since that time, these tax expenditures have assisted White households by nearly $20 trillion in reduced tax payments. Assuming these transfers were invested and earned a modest 3 percent real rate of return, then they would total $40 trillion in 2022. Assuming the funds were deposited in an S&P 500 index fund and simply held until 2022, then they would account for nearly $60 trillion of that increase.