Mirage: Why Neither Democrats Nor Republicans Can Balance the Budget, End the Deficit, and Satisfy the Public

by George Hager

In Mirage , Eric Pianin and George Hager tell the behind-the-scenes story of the repeated efforts to balance the budget and reduce the how America got into this mess and why every attempt over the past two decades to get us out has failed.  It is a story of wishful thinking compounded by a chronic failure of leadership -- from Ronald Reagan's something-for-nothing plan to reduce the deficit to Bill Clinton's missed opportunity to enact a deficit plan that would really work instead of making of a modest effort that would spend vast amounts of political capital just to make a dent in the problem.  And it is a warning that American democracy may finally have found, in the budget and the deficit, a challenge it simply cannot meet. The American political system, so adept at reacting to crises and giving people what they want in the short run, is ultimately unable to manage the long-term sacrifice needed to address the budget problem.

337 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 1997

Reviews

[Carina]

So scary.

[Jim Slade]

Fascinating journalism.