Customer Reviews

The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Struggle to Limit Government: A Modern Political History surveys the high and low points of nearly twenty years of struggle to limit American government. Bush's willingness to expand government for political reasons represented a far extreme of political power gone awry, but other examples show that both parties need to incorporate this idea into future plans - and his focus on spending, taxation and the politics of 'entitlement' that have permeated modern government makes for eye-opening insights perfect for college-level political discussions.

The author examines the issue of limited government in modern American politics from a libertarian perspective. The book is a mix of political history, political philosophy, and public finance.

The author starts with a discussion of the ideas and principles of American Progressivism, and the implementation of Progressive ideas and principles in the New Deal. The author then looks at how the federal government continued to grow after the New Deal, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and how the growth of the federal government led to a series of increasing problems and failures in the 1960s and 1970s. The author examines the effect of the President Reagan administration on the size of the federal government and concludes it had limited success and mixed results on the issue of the limiting the size and scope of the federal government. The author then looks at the continued growth of the federal government from after the President Reagan administration to the beginning of the President Obama administration. In the book's last chapter, the author states his conclusions about the growth of the federal government from the New Deal to the present, offers his opinions on the likelihood of significant change in the growth of the federal government, and notes the American people seem to be ambivalent about what they want and expect from the federal government.

This is a thoughtful and ambitious book. It is not a book for casual reading. A reader willing to devote the time and attention necessary to follow the author's discussions and arguments can gain some useful insight into a libertarian perspective on the size and growth of the federal government.