9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read for Informed Voters, September 24, 2006
This review is from: Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government (Hardcover)
I am glad I bought this book. Good books entertain and inform. Really good books also make you think. Buck Wild is a really good book.
The author tells a compelling story about the federal budget process. Like any good story, it has villians and heroes. Who wears the black hats and who wears the white ones will surprise you.
The history of the budget process, how it's written, approved and implemented is well researched by the author and presented in an entertaining and informative style. For a non-fiction offering, Buck Wild is more paced than most books of this genre. It's a page turner that keeps you wondering what the next chapter will offer up.
Today's hot items of term limits, the war on terror,taxes and the deficit are all discussed in the book. How the current Republican leadership has chosen to govern in light of these factors is the book's real meat. Once the GOP gained control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue they changed. Mr. Slivinski offers some intriguing reasons.
The author closes with a brilliant historical analysis of the spending habits of two types of government, united government, our current form, and divided (gridlock).
I have been a proud Republican for thirty years and will continue to be.However when I enter the voting booth this November I will be approaching the who and why of my vote from a different viewpoint thanks to Mr. Slivinski.
Buck Wild is a must read,if you pride yourself in being an informed voter.
by Larry Mann
Trenton NJ
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So Much for Small Government, September 21, 2006
This review is from: Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government (Hardcover)
The inability -- or the unwillingness -- of congressional Republicans to limit the growth of government has been a source of considerable frustration for fiscal conservatives. Shortly after the 1994 election, many conservatives hoped that Republicans would fulfill their campaign promises to end scores of federal programs and eliminate Cabinet agencies. However, just a few years later the Republican National Committee was sending out press releases boasting about record increases in federal education spending. Even worse, in 2004 the same Republican leadership ruthlessly twisted arms and violated House procedural rules to pass the Medicare prescription-drug bill, the largest increase in entitlement spending since the Great Society.
Stephen Slivinski's new book, Buck Wild: How the Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government, describes this transformation. The book begins with President Reagan's bruising battle to pass the 1981 budget, which included substantial cuts in both taxes and spending. This was one of the most important victories of the Reagan presidency, as Reagan was never again able to enact substantial cuts in expenditures. Still, Reagan was at least fairly successful in limiting the growth of government. In fact, non-defense discretionary spending actually declined relative to inflation during the 1980s.
Unfortunately, Reagan's legacy has been lost on his successors. President Bush's tax hike in 1990 betrayed many fiscal conservatives. Furthermore, after Republicans won control of both the House and Senate in 1994, they seemed poised actually to reduce the size of government. In fact, in 1995 Congress passed a budget that cut non-defense domestic spending for the first time since 1981. However, after a conflict with President Clinton over Medicare, Republican congressional leadership lost all interest in reducing spending. Sadly, this trend has continued well into the presidency of George W. Bush. Overall, during the Bush administration, spending has grown faster than at any time since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Even worse, many agencies which have received large budgetary increases are not even remotely related to the war on terror.
This inability of Republicans to limit spending causes Slivinski to argue for divided government. Slivinski provides statistical evidence that federal spending actually grows more slowly during times of divided government. Furthermore, he argues that two of the most important political victories for fiscal conservatives, the 1981 budget and the 1986 Tax Reform Act, were passed during times of divided government. In fairness, both of these bills were passed partly because Democrats suffered stinging electoral defeats in both the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Regardless, Slivinski convincingly argues that Republicans have done little to promote fiscal discipline despite controlling both the Congress and the presidency for the past five years.
Now despite the pessimistic nature of the book, there are actually some silver linings. First, many of the Republican House members who led the charge for limited government after the 1994 election have not suffered politically. To the contrary, many of them are doing very well. Sam Brownback and Tom Coburn have been elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas and Oklahoma, respectively. Furthermore, Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona was a candidate for House Majority Leader and now serves as the chair of the Republican Study Committee. In fact, these men are enjoying better political fortunes than their onetime adversaries in the House leadership, including Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and Tom Delay, all of whom are no longer serving in elected office.
Perhaps even more importantly, Slivinski provides numerous examples of how a relatively small number of Republican House members have been able to exert enough political pressure on their colleagues to enact some reductions in spending, in part thanks to the slim Republican congressional majorities. For instance, the defection of about a dozen conservative members on a procedural vote in 1995 gave them some leverage to push for larger cuts in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Furthermore, the willingness of the Republican Study Committee to publicly criticize the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska resulted in some additional reductions in spending. Perhaps the presence of additional fiscal conservatives in the House could restore the Republican Party's legacy as the party of limited government.
Overall, Slivinski does a fine job providing an overview of the leftward shift in fiscal policy preferences among the leadership of the Republican Party. More time could have been devoted to the congressional effort to reform Medicare in 1995, which marked the last time Republican House leadership made a real effort to cut spending. Furthermore, more attention could have also been paid to the inability of Gramm Rudman Hollings Act, PAYGO rules, and other institutional mechanisms to control the growth of government. All in all, however, these are relatively minor complaints. By concisely detailing how the leadership of the Republican Party has abandoned limited government and showing the need for fiscal conservatives to look elsewhere for possible political strategies, Slivinski has performed a fine service for his readers.
-Review Appeared in National Review Online on August 16, 2006
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A nostalgic look back at what might have been...., April 14, 2007
This review is from: Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government (Hardcover)
Steven Slivinski's BUCK WILD does an excellent job of documenting the migration of the Republicans from a party of limited government conservatism (Goldwater/Reagan) to a party of national greatness conservatism (Brooks/Kristol), compassionate conservatism (Brooks) and big government conservatism (Barnes).
Starting his analysis in 1994 with the Republican Revolution, Slivinksi argues that the Republican Party stuck to its Contract With America pledge to scale back a federal government "that is too big, too intrusive and too easy with the public's money," but only for a short period. From 1995 through 1997, the Party was able to limit discretionary spending, move towards a balanced budget and pass welfare and farm subsidy reform under intense opposition. Beginning in approximately 1998 when a strong economy produced a surge in federal revenues, the Party started to abandon its limited government roots in favor of expanded spending, targeted tax breaks and increased government pork. This transformation reached its apex under the GWB administration, which has presided over the largest expansion in federal spending since LBJ (in total) and Nixon (after excluding defense and homeland security expenditures). This leads Slivinksi to conclude that the Republicans have become the party of big government.
Many who disagree with Slivinski's and others' criticisms of the Republican spending spree, like to argue that federal spending increases should be evaluated as a percentage of GDP, rather than in absolute terms. While I disagree, the record from 1995 through 2006 lends little support for this argument. In 1995, when the Republicans took control of Congress, federal spending was 20.7% of GDP. By the time Clinton left office in 2001, Congress and Clinton had shrunk federal spending to 18.4% of GDP and if left to increase on auto-pilot, federal spending would total approximately 17% of GDP today-- a dramatic decrease indeed. Instead by 2006, GWB and the Republican Congress had expanded the federal government to 20.8% of GDP, effectively reversing the gains of the previous decade.
What started out so fruitfully in 1994 with the Republican Revolution has ended with a bloated federal government and a Republican Party with little direction. BUCK WILD explores all of these areas and more. There are also plenty of behind-the-scenes accounts (e.g. Gingrich vs. the Gang of Eleven) that make the book both informative and entertaining.
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