Marv Gandall wrote:
Rosenbergs' son...
And author of a very fine dissection of Clintonomics, the forerunner to
Obamanomics.
http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=15199
Surrender
How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution
Michael Meeropol
Illuminates recent national economic policy and warns against the
single-minded commitment to balance the federal budget. The paperback
edition features a new preface and afterword
About the Book
Michael Meeropol argues that the ballooning of the federal budget
deficit was not a serious problem in the 1980s, nor were the successful
recent efforts to get it under control the basis for the prosperous
economy of the mid-1990s. In this controversial book, the author
provides a close look at what actually happened to the American economy
during the years of the "Reagan Revolution" and reveals that the huge
deficits had no negative effect on the economy. It was the other
policies of the Reagan years—high interest rates to fight inflation,
supply-side tax cuts, reductions in regulation, increased advantages for
investors and the wealthy, the unraveling of the safety net for the
poor—that were unsuccessful in generating more rapid growth and other
economic improvements.
Meeropol provides compelling evidence of the failure of the U.S. economy
between 1990 and 1994 to generate rising incomes for most of the
population or improvements in productivity. This caused, first, the
electoral repudiation of President Bush in 1992, followed by a
repudiation of President Clinton in the 1994 Congressional elections.
The Clinton administration made a half-hearted attempt to reverse the
Reagan Revolution in economic policy, but ultimately surrendered to the
Republican Congressional majority in 1996 when Clinton promised to
balance the budget by 2000 and signed the welfare reform bill. The rapid
growth of the economy in 1997 caused surprisingly high government
revenues, a dramatic fall in the federal budget deficit, and a brief
euphoria evident in an almost uncontrollable stock market boom. Finally,
Meeropol argues powerfully that the next recession, certain to come
before the end of 1999, will turn the predicted path to budget balance
and millennial prosperity into a painful joke on the hubris of public
policymakers.
Accessibly written as a work of recent history and public policy as much
as economics, this book is intended for all Americans interested in
issues of economic policy, especially the budget deficit and the Clinton
versus Congress debates. No specialized training in economics is needed.
Michael Meeropol is Chair and Professor of Economics, Western New
England College.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
