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An even more sobering companion to last week's Population Clock, this resource from the U.S. Treasury shows how much the country's economic deficit is. Use the data from last week to figure out what your share is.... From This is True for 7 March 2004 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Robert E. Wright List Price: $27.95 Amazon Price: $18.45 Editorial Review: Like its current citizens, the United States was born in debt-a debt so deep that it threatened to destroy the young nation. Thomas Jefferson considered the national debt a monstrous fraud on posterity, while Alexander Hamilton believed debt would help America prosper. Both, as it turns out, were right. One Nation Under Debt explores the untold history of America's first national debt, which arose from the immense sums needed to conduct the American Revolution. Noted economic historian Robert Wright, Ph.D. tells in riveting narrative how a subjugated but enlightened people cast off a great tyrant-?but their liberty, won with promises as well as with the blood of patriots, came at a high price.? He brings to life the key events that shaped the U.S. financial system and explains how the actions of our forefathers laid the groundwork for the debt we still carry today. As an economically tenuous nation by Revolution's end, America's people struggled to get on their feet. Wright outlines how the formation of a new government originally reduced the nation's debt-but, as debt was critical to this government's survival, it resurfaced, to be beaten back once more. Wright then reveals how political leaders began accumulating massive new debts to ensure their popularity, setting the financial stage for decades to come. Wright traces critical evolutionary developments-from Alexander Hamilton's creation of the nation's first modern capital market, to the use of national bonds to further financial goals, to the drafting of state constitutions that created non-predatory governments. He shows how, by the end of Andrew Jackson's administration, America's financial system was contributing to national growth while at the same time new national and state debts were amassing, sealing the fate for future generations.  By: Rob Simpson List Price: $9.95 Amazon Price: $9.95 Editorial Review: The war in Iraq is not only controversial, it's also astronomically expensive. Now Rob Simpson answers the question many concerned Americans have been asking: Wasn't there some other way the government could have spent one trillion of our tax dollars? What We Could Have Done with the Money presents 50 thought-provoking spending alternatives. With a trillion dollars, we could . . . Fix Social Security right now: Stop worrying. Stop debating. It's done. Over. Fixed. End homelessness in America: House 15 million homeless families, get a million kids out of foster care, and have change to spare! Give everyone in the world satellite TV: Can we have the revolution later? I'm watching CSI right now. Pay everyone in Iraq to be nice to each other: Hey! If someone tripled your salary for the next 20 years, wouldn't you behave? Go Green: Give 100 million car buyers a $10,000 subsidy on their hybrid. Or gold . . . : Pave every highway in America with gold leaf. Play ball! : Fly everyone in Iraq to America, put them up in a nice hotel for three days with all the extras, take them to a baseball game and fly them home . . . and have a lot leftover. Cure cancer: Double research spending for as long as it takes. . . . not to mention paying all credit card debt, buying everyone in the world an iPod, building 75 million solar-powered homes, and 39 other revealing pipe dreams. Shocking, thought-provoking, and incredibly entertaining, Simpson takes a hard look at the government's top priorities--both what they are and what they should be.  By: Leland Gregory List Price: $11.95 Amazon Price: $10.75 Editorial Review: Here is the utterly amazing, laugh-out loud scoop on the local, state, and federal foul-ups supported by your tax dollars. From Washington D.C. to Small Town, U.S.A., you can count on one thing from our government...Bloopers! A federal computer glitch listed everyone in Hartford, Connecticut as dead.  By: M. Frederic Bastiat List Price: $8.95 Amazon Price: $8.95 Editorial Review: Must-read classic from the brilliant French economist and philospher.  By: Irene S. Rubin List Price: $45.95 Amazon Price: $30.36 Editorial Review: As Irene Rubin has shown convincingly in past editions, public budgeting is inherently political. Short-term partisan goals overrun long-term public interest and democratic processes, eroding institutional and public capacity to address collective problems. By presenting federal, state, and local budgeting within a comparative framework, Rubin's classic text gives explicit attention to issues of federalism, always sensitive to the power struggles between the different branches and levels of government. How much control is exerted from above and what degree of autonomy can be found at each level of government? What kind of influence do elected officials wield over government priorities? How do we resolve the tension between patronage, pork, and tax breaks necessary for reelection and the requirements of balance, technical efficiency, and prioritization? |
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