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63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic of 20th century American politics, July 27, 1999
By A Customer
It's unfortunate that a couple of my fellow reviewers let their partisan ire blind them to the valuable lessons in national fiscal policy in this book. Stockman's basic thesis is that the supply-side revolution had three main components:(1) a large tax cut package, (2) "painful" spending cuts, and (3) a hard-money monetary policy. Stockman makes a very persuasive argument that the Reagan Administration was unwilling to soften hard-line stance on the tax cut when it was obvious that (2) was not being taken care of and (3) was inconsistent with this policy. Even when the dangers of this course became clear, the Administration shut its eyes to reality and hoped for the best. Contrary to the reviewer below, I don't think Stockman argues that the Laffer curve was "discredited" in an intellectual sense, but rather that it was only applicable in an inflationary economy; Paul Volcker's tightening actions at the Federal Reserve denied this crucial condition. As to the reviewer with the childish "liberal propaganda" claim, Stockman clearly makes the point that Republicans and Democrats alike were unwilling to make the drastic spending cuts needed to offset the revenue loss. (And regardless of your political affiliation, I'm not sure how you can defend the economic wisdom of a president who doesn't understand such rudimentary concepts as the difference between current and constant dollars). And as to the idea that Rosy Scenario wasn't all that important, how else would you explain that the mounting debt feared by Stockman actually materialized? Say what you will, Stockman's predictions turned out to be right. It would be wrong to characterize Stockman's book as an attack on Republicans, or supply-side economics per se. It is rather a warning to would-be ideologues who would attempt to impose their dreams on an uncooperative world, a lesson that both liberals and conservatives should take to heart.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stockman's book explains the reason for our national debt., September 3, 1998
This review is from: The Triumph Of Politics: The Inside Story of the Reagan Revolution (Paperback)
David Stockman, the former head of the OMB (1980-1986), does an outstanding job of explaining the government's inability to control the explosive growth in national debt levels. In Stockman's memoirs there are no heroes or villians, just varying gradations of politicians dedicated to "bringing home the bacon" to their districts while piously proclaiming their allegiance to balancing the budget and restoring fiscal sanity to the political process. Republicans are portrayed as replicas of their Democratic counterparts, equally adept at seizing national assets for their paymasters. Perhaps Stockman's greatest sin, in the eyes of his former conservative comrades, was his depiction of Ronald Reagan as an old, harmless softy whose refusal to demand discipline from his staff, party, and the American people helped contribute to the deficit chaos that ensued during his tenure.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Failure in Editing, May 6, 2004
If I had to describe this book in one sentence it would be Hunter Thompson meets Alan Greenspan. The author had a writing style that was machine gun fast with the sentences almost slapping you to attention. But before you jump into the book I would suggest digging up those old college Finance, Accounting and Economics textbooks because this author does not provide a basic course in government budgetary matters, you have to earn this books respect. The uniqueness of the book does not stop there; I have never read a book with more nicknames and odd adjectives used in describing people and events. It was almost if the author had some odd personality defect that forced him to ascribe nicknames to people. The author covers his years in the OMB for Reagan, but to be fair he really spends about 80% of the book on the first budget and the process he went through to get it passed into law. If you are a fan of detail, this book has it by the bushel full. He takes the reader into every meeting, phone conversation and thought about the process. You see just exactly how much horse-trading and arm-twisting there is in this process and you come away feeling a little unclean. This is where the author finally comes to his point, which is that, the Reagan revolutions plan of dramatically reduced tax rates and government services failed. The tax cuts happened, but the spending reductions never had a chance. This, of course, created the massive government deficits that we have been living with for the past 20 plus years. Overall this is the most interesting part of the book. His realization that the budgets he worked on and the overall outcome could be more harmful to the long term interests of the US then if the old system would have been left in place. Let me end this review by stating that I have never read a book by anybody so conservative as this man. Conservative is being kind, he is a hard core Libertarian who comes across as the only good government program is a dead government program type. He railed against all programs, even taking on school lunches for poor kids and wheel chair assistance programs for the poor. He could not stand government regulations either. He went into one section stating that seat belt and safety glass requirements for car manufactures were unnecessary and overbearing government intrusions into the private sector. Overall I felt the book was a bit too jumpy for me in the writing style and the detail was about 25% too much. There are interesting parts, but describing the 5th meeting on some section of the budget was a bit dull.
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