A refreshing, clear eyed look at deficit spending from Roosevelt to Clinton.
A well-written and useful book...concise and reliable.
The Journal of Southern History
A well-written and useful book...concise and reliable
Journal of Southern History
A refreshing, clear eyed look at deficit spending from Roosevelt to Clinton.
Morgan has performed a valuable service...cogent and interesting...a surplus on its own merit.
Political Studies Quarterly
If timing is everything, Morgan’s Deficit Government has it made.
Journal of Economic History
With the economy likely to be the central problem facing Clinton and every president who succeeds him into the foreseeable future, this book on the history of modern budgetary politics could not have come at a better time. Morgan (history, London Guildhall Univ.) reviews the development of America's budgeting practices from the New Deal to the present, and he explains, in very clear language, how budget decisions influence our economy. Budget deficits have become the norm, with only eight instances of balanced budgets since 1933. But the real issue is not whether the budget is in balance but whether the imbalance has beneficial or harmful consequences. And it is on this theme that Morgan, as a neutral observer, provides his greatest service. Because budgets are as much political as economic statements, intepretations of them differ. What is clear from Morgan's analysis is that, despite many years of deficit budgets, the United States succeeded in controlling the negative effects except during the Reagan-Bush years. This fine short volume is recommended for political and economic collections.-Thomas Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Morgan (American history, London Guildhall U.) surveys the political and partisan debates surrounding budget policy from the Roosevelt to the Clinton presidencies, focusing on federal expenditure and tax policies, and explains the origins, impact, and growth of budget deficits. He addresses Democratic administrations' use of deficits to boost economic growth in the 1960s and conservative doctrines that culminated in the Reagan era supply-side approaches, and examines the competing demands of federal programs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Two thirds of the nation's first 140 federal budgets were balanced; in those years, war and depression caused most red ink. Since 1933, however, only eight budgets have been balanced. Morgan--principal politics and modern history lecturer at London Guildhall University and author of "Beyond the Liberal Consensus" (1994) and "Ike Versus "The Spenders"" (1990)--traces the ideological and institutional changes this history reflects, distinguishing "forms" of Keynesianism, for example, and finding roots of supply-side economics in earlier doctrines. Since the '30s, he notes, the federal government has taken on responsibilities--as a welfare state, an investor state, a national security state--unimaginable in earlier times. Over the past six decades, Morgan argues, policymakers generally managed to balance the budget's "purposes"" to pay for programs that the nation needs, to manage the economy, and to raise revenue in an equitable manner." Until the 1980s "Age of Excess," elect"ed officials earn a passing grade for deficit "control", because red-ink amounts were low relative to GNP, except when recessions hit. On balance, Morgan sees budget deficits as beneficial to the economy through the '70s; the unproductive deficits of recent years should not, he urges, "overshadow [the deficit government's] half-century of success."
A well-written and useful book...concise and reliable.
Journal Of Southern History
