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Title: The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed by David Alan Stockman ISBN: 0-06-015560-4 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: May, 1986 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A welcome visit to the time of the last big tax-cuts
Comment: David Stockman, a supply-side economist, was the director of the budget for Ronald Reagan. What a thankless task. He wanted to cut spending. Reagan wanted to cut taxes without cutting services, or making himself unpopular. The end result was record deficits, and a burgeoning debt.
Mr. Stockman writes with unflinching candor about his naivete of the political and budget process. He shares his frustrations with the reader. This book is particularly instructive twenty years later as Congress tries to keep the recent tax cut intact without blowing the budget out of the water. Watch the mirrors closely, boys and girls!
Rating: 5
Summary: True Confessions of the Sorcerer's Apprentice
Comment: In 1980 Ronald Reagan promised to cut taxes, increase military spending, and balance the budget by 1984! Was this a campaign promise, or a conscious lie? This is the true confession of an insider on the Reagan team. It seems that cutting taxes was the easy part, it just required passing a popular law. Spending created benefits for groups who will object to any reduction. Machiavelli noted that any changed law is difficult because those who benefit from the old way are united in objection, but those who would benefit from the new way have not experienced the proposed benefits.
Stockman says "poverty programs" could not be reduced, and blames it on politicians like Bob Dole and George McGovern (p.410). Don't they represent food producing area whose products can be bought with food stamps? Don't the grocery chains profit from these sales? Don't other chain stores profit from any money not spent on food? Stockman only looked at one part of this system, and used his prejudgment to condemn this part. He did not understand the working of the system.
The book tells of the results of the "Atlantic" article on Washington. Stockman seemed surprised that his rivals and political enemies ganged up on him (p.6)! He also seemed surprised that those with opposing politics could misquote him! (It does show how the press can be controlled to target a politician.) Senator Lowell Weicker described Stockman this way: "He's had his head up his ... from day one" (p.389). This books supports that opinion; why else would he write a very readable book about his mistakes?
Pages 10-11 tell about "an inflation-swollen economy". But he dances around the control of the money supply by a Private Banking Cartel (pp.62-3), an important subject. Stockman blames "politicians" for debasement of the currency, but ignores the fact of who controls the politicians! If Corporate Capitalists control politicians, then they must be the ones who benefit from controlled inflation. The topic of the "gold standard" masks the fact that silver has been used for money for countless centuries, right down to 1964 in America (remember silver dimes?). Weicker's location of Stockman's head rings true here.
Reagan's picked biographer said he was senile by his second term, and may have been in his first. Page 10 supports this opinion. What does this say about our political system? Has anything like this happened since a dead El Cid was tied to a horse?
Stockman's "revolution" required redefining fairness (p.11). It meant an absolute limit on Social Security payouts. Everyone working pays into Social Security, but the benefits are skewed towards longevity (which may omit the oppressed and exploited classes). Cui bono?
Page 41 lists the economic problems of the 1970s: speculation over production (the rewards of capital gains over income), and inflation (devaluation of the dollar). Stabilizing the dollar (a silver standard), and higher marginal tax rates appear to be the correct and untried cure. The Chrysler Corporation bail-out resulted from the Rockefeller-controlled forced borrowing; this is censored here (p.42). Dumping Rockefeller's bankers and putting UAW representatives on Chrysler's board did save it for the next twenty years.
Rating: 5
Summary: American Political Analysis at its Best
Comment: To discover the subject matter of this book, you can look to other reviews. I will confine my comments to my own opinion, for what it's worth.
I have read this book several times, now randomly picking pages for a starting point. No other book comes close to understanding America's domestic political process. It is an intelligent view from the trenches, like Robert Graves' "Goodbye to All That".
A reader must understand that Stockman writes with a quick, wry sense of humour. He's beyond tongue in cheek. It could be titled "The Education of David Stockman". The content is fascinating (the right should take notice), but so is the style (the left has to marvel)!
This one is an esoteric classic - better than 'Six Crises'.
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Title: The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind ISBN: 0743255453 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 13 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Acting President: Ronald Reagan and the Men Who Helped Him Create the Illusion That Held America Spellbound by Bob Schieffer, Gary Paul Gates ISBN: 0525247521 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: July, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason ISBN: 0312315600 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 25 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington by Donald Regan ISBN: 0151639663 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: January, 1990 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The New Politics of Public Policy by Martin A. Levin, Marc K. Landy ISBN: 0801848784 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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