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The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Chait
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 266555
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 0618685405
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.973
EAN: 9780618685400
ASIN: 0618685405
Publication Date: September 12, 2007
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Product Description
American politics has been hijacked. Over the past three decades, a fringe group of economic hucksters has corrupted and perverted our nation's policies. With dark, engaging wit, Jonathan Chait reveals how these canny zealots first took over the Republican Party and then gamed the political system and the media so that once unthinkable policies -- without a shred of academic, expert, or even popular support -- now drive the political agenda, regardless of which party is in power.
Why have these ideas succeeded in Washington? How did a clique of extremists gain control of American economic policy and sell short the country's future? And why do their outlandish ideas still determine policy despite repeated electoral setbacks? Chait tells the outrageous and eye-opening story, expertly explaining just how politics and economics work in Washington. Through vivid portraits of venal politicians and pseudo-economists, with wry analyses of their bogus theories, Chait gives us the tools to understand what's really behind economic policy debates in Washington: a riveting drama of greed and deceit.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 More than an economic con June 3, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have just one minor criticism of this book: the subtitle, "The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics." Strange to say this somewhat misrepresents the content of the book. The real con was played on the American public not just Washington, and it was more of a political con than an economic one.
It is true that the Reagan and especially the George W. Bush administrations systematically stole money from the middle class and gave it to the rich, but that is only part of the story. The real con, as Jonathan Chait makes clear, is in their attempted destruction of the checks and balances of our democratic/republican form of government as established by the founding fathers. The Republicans have simply made Congress irrelevant in many respects. Chait shows how the Bush administration was able to stifle opposing views by intimidating a cowardly press, and with a near dictatorial level of executive privilege in the White House and a storm trooper like control of committees and procedures in the Congress, was able to empty the treasury and fatten the pockets of cronies in big corporations.
In their zeal to make government smaller, the voodoo economists, the neocons, and their clueless allies, the evangelical social conservatives, have eviscerated the machinery of government to the point that all the appointed posts are filled with Bush buddies, party hacks and corporate henchmen, many of whom are incompetent and loyal not to the American people but to the very institutions and corporations that they are supposed to oversee and regulate. Furthermore Bush has greatly weakened America abroad with his wasteful and immoral war in Iraq while at the same time has strengthened both Al Qaeda and the theocracy in Iran. Additionally, Bush's personal incompetence and immorality in international affairs has made the US not just the butt of jokes but has brought shame upon the US, once arguably the moral leader of the world.
As Chait chronicles it, this thievery and desecration of America was tried before during the reign of the robber barons and continued until the power structure realized that if they kept stealing from the masses they might invite the specter that was haunting Europe into the heartland of American--that specter being communism. Now with communism nearly dead, the new robber barons are again emboldened. The thievery began again in earnest during the Reagan administration with the laughable economics of the Laffer Curve. The idea is that--miracle of miracles!--you can increase government revenues by lowering taxes. Yes! If governments tax at too high a rate people will lose the initiative to work or invest because of diminishing returns from their labor and capital. But if you lower taxes allowing people to keep a higher percentage of what they have earned, low and behold they work harder and invest more and this stimulates the economy!
This idea, as Chait acknowledges, contains a germ of truth. There probably IS a point on the Laffer Curve at which the optimum amount of revenue can be collected from any given economy. Of course knowing exactly where this point lies would involving understanding much more about the American economy than can really be known. And of course the locus of that point would be constantly changing with changing circumstances. No matter. If, through high toned pronouncements from think tanks and control by intimidation of the media, the idea of lowering taxes for the investing class can be sold to a gullible public as good for the hungry masses, then we are home free! Call it all part of the dumbing down of America on the way to creating a huge and permanent underclass.
And so it came (partly) to pass. And then in the George W. Bush administration they went--how shall I phrase it?--ape sh-t! However nobody in Washington seemed to notice that across the Atlantic Ocean where the corporate and income tax rates were much higher than in the US, the dollar was getting clobbered. The average American's net worth vis-à-vis the average Chablis-swilling Frenchy was in free fall, not to mention how the burghers in Deutschland were making out. Whereas Tokyo used to be the most expensive city on earth for Americans, now it was London where the dollar bought only a fraction of the Euro.
The rhetoric from the right intones: "You earned it. You ought to be able to keep it!" But this simplistic slogan ignores the fact that even the road you drive on was built and paid for by somebody else. All the riches that can be created today out of the economy cannot be considered riches that you or I earned alone. Without the vast infrastructure already in place we would be as poor as African Bushmen. And yes the rich should pay more in taxes since they have more to conserve and protect, and therefore benefit disproportionately from the military, the police, and all the other institutions of government aimed at insuring domestic tranquility and safety--and that includes social welfare services which help keep the masses from the ramparts.
What Chait demonstrates only too well in this very readable tome is that of late the greed has gotten out of control. I suspect that those with half a brain on the right who are in positions of power will recognize that there is a limit to how much you can steal and get away with it. No communist menace is at hand, but an incompetent government and an internationally weak America may bring about some unwelcome changes, such as the US becoming a gigantic banana republic ripe for revolution.
A good companion volume to this excellent work, covering much of the same ground from a similar point of view, is John W. Dean's "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches" (2007).
A good place to start May 23, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is a good place to start to understand the late 20th century's emergence of the conservative movement and it's fortunate partnership with social conservatives and "Reagan Democrats." Chait spells out that the movement's flaws in logic as a radical logic. That means lying is OK because in the conservative universe it's not lying but serving a higher purpose. His exploration is extremely readable, especially of the asymmetric relationship between conservatives who toe the line and liberals who naturally try to compromise.
 only read the first chapter May 23, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I actually put this book aside after having gotten about 75% of the way through it, something I rarely do.
"The Big Con" starts off interesting and informative, but after a few chapters devolves into a rambling series of observations on why our current president is a big dumb jerk. It was at this point I put it down.
The reason I picked it up was because I wanted to know more about the Laffer curve and supply-side economics, the foundation of many GOP positions these days. Those who espouse these ideas are the "crackpots" that Chait attacks.
I'm very interested in supply-side economics and wanted to know more about the idea and where it came from, even if it had to be in the context of an attack on the idea.
I do believe there's something to supply-side thinking, as I observe that I myself behave in a supply-side fashion: I work less than I otherwise would, since I view the marginal tax rate on my "overtime" as greater than my opportunity cost: the pleasure of sitting around. Meaning that, in economics terms, I substitute leisure for work, and the government collects NO tax money, whereas it could have at least collected SOMETHING off my extra hours had it lowered my marginal tax rate. Now I can't be the only one in this situation.
So . . . how much more tax revenue could be collected by the government were use this idea to tinker with existing tax rates? In other words, how far can you take this point? Can you base an entire economic philosophy on it? This seems dubious.
Well, Chapter 1 is a well-written, informative, and blistering attack on this idea, called the Laffer curve. As Chait explains how this perfectly reasonably observation has been abused and overused in Washington (beginning about the time of Reagan), I found myself elucidated and instructed. Chait is right in asserting that politicians have taken this point way too far.
Unfortunately, I think Chait really had just a Washington Post essay here, not an entire book. The rest of the book is pretty much nothing more than a series of whiny observations on the political scene, until you find the author actually complaining (pp. 171-173) about how the media overlooked George Bush's peanut butter & jelly sandwich incident, but savaged John Kerry over his Swiss cheese incident. It was shortly after reading this that I decided the rest of the book wasn't worth my time.
Uh, Mr. Chait, I thought this was supposed to be a book on the viability of supply-side economics?
In short, Chapter One is all you need to read. In fact, I found it so informative I read it twice: it certainly helped dampen my enthusiasm for supply-side thinking.
But as for the rest of the book, it's nothing more than a poorly organized attack on Republicans in general.
 The Cult of Tax Cutting April 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
George W. Bush's economic plan can be summed up with to two words... cut taxes. In a 2008 interview Bush mentioned that his administration had a `strong-dollar' policy. One commentator added that Bush's ASSERTION of a strong-dollar policy was the full extent of the policy. Tax cuts really are the entire philosophy of the cult of supply-side economics. Sure, they talk about pro-growth, trickle-down and starving the beast but lowering taxes is not an end to a means it is the end. For supply-siders lowering taxes is a good idea when the government is running a surplus, running a deficit, fighting inflation, entering a recession, in a war, at peace. Lowing taxes will increase government revenue, help poor waitresses and probably walk your dog on a snowy day.
A perfect example of how powerful the supply-siders have become in the current GOP one only needs to look at the 2008 election campaign. All the major candidates ran as supply-siders including John McCain who was famously against Bush's absurdly tilted tax cuts. Now McCain has totally reinvented himself as a born again supply-sider calling for the exact tax cuts on corporations and wealth that he used to stand against. Ironically this is just about the opposite of what polls show the electorate would prefer which is a reduction in the deficit and more money for government services. The GOP has a stunning track record of winning elections while running on an economic platform that's completely non-representative of the wishes of voters.
The interesting thing is that supply-side economics was developed by non-economists and the reason it has flourished has nothing to do with its effectiveness. The author writes, `The lesson for cranks everywhere is that your theory stands a stronger chance of success if it directly benefits a rich and powerful block" In addition, the author points out, "Crackpot economic theories... enjoy an inherent advantage over other sorts of crackpot theories because it's harder for ordinary people (or even elites) to recognize the lunacy" The economic policy of the modern Republican Party is neither Conservative nor Liberal in fact it doesn't adhere to any ideology. In reference to the Medicare debacle the author states that, "Essentially nobody except their direct beneficiaries, and the politicians whose loyalty they reward, supports these measures" What politics needs is a term for an ideology that describes slavishly showering rewards on lobbyists. Crony capitalism is probably the most applicable label.
My big problem with the `Big Con' was that it didn't really deliver as advertised. The subtitle, `...How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics' is highly misleading. The first couple chapters focus on supply-side economics but then the book veers off into basically a recap of the books `Off Center' by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson and `The Conscience of a Liberal' by Paul Krugman. In fact the author directly quotes Hacker and Pierson several times. The meat of the book is about how politicians, who are increasingly divorced from the desires of the electorate, can continue to get elected. He talks about how Republicans vigorously push personality over policy and habitually lie to the electorate in order to mask their true aims. Unfortunately after well over 7 years of the Bush administration this has sort of reached the level of a dog bites man news story. `Big Con' is a decent book with a lot of important information but a large portion of the center of the book is just a rehash of other, better books.
if only it were fiction. March 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The events described in this book are so bizzare as to almost defy belief. Unfortunaly, it's all true. This book is a devestating expose of the crackpot movement known as supply side economics. REad it and weep.
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