David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-CEO of the Carlyle Group -- one of the country’s most profitable private equity firms -- is also one of Washington's most generous and well-known philanthropists. In 2013 he famously donated $50 million to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts -- which he also currently chairs -- and he has given tens of million of dollars in separate donations to a variety of other public and private institutions. But in recent years, critics have begun to question the source of much of Rubenstein's estimated $2.6 billion net worth.
In a story in the March 14 issue of The New Yorker Magazine, Alec MacGillis, who covers politics for Pro Publica, examines one of the principal ways that Rubenstein and other private equity executives have amassed their great wealth: the little-known tax break for "carried interest." This huge loophole, which significantly lowers the tax rate on the income that hedge-fund managers earn from certain speculative investments, has become a political football in the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. Alec MacGillis joins Tom this morning in Studio A to share his insights on how American taxpayers are helping the nation's very rich get even richer.
