Spurred by unrealized talk of a peace dividend when the Cold War ended, Jansson (The Reluctant Welfare State), a scholar at the University of Southern California, took nearly a decade to research and write this lucid, remarkably flowing, critical history of American government spending and national priorities from 1932 to the present, tracing the policy and political dynamics that, he says, have wasted $16 trillion (a conservative estimate, he claims). Jansson is not referring primarily to the pork-barrel expenditures usually associated with government waste, which, he states, amount to only "pennies on the dollar." Instead, he focuses primarily on undertaxation (of individuals as well as corporations) and the resulting huge debt payments and military spending, which have chronically crippled vital domestic government programs. Jansson clearly documents sometimes surprising but key historical issues, such as the severe underfunding of the New Deal and Great Society ("Historians often portray the New Deal as mammoth," he notes, "but it had relatively few resources" because FDR wouldn't increase taxes to subsidize it). He similarly notes the massive size of Nixon's entitlements expansion and Reagan's ballooning of the debt (with the resulting vast interest payments). Both liberals and conservatives should care about eliminating the real mother lode of government waste, Jansson argues, and he suggests tax levels (20% of GDP) and military policies to do so. Jansson's analysis is strongly persuasive in showing that we've paid dearly for short-term expediency and ideological rigidity and surely need to change. 8 tables, 35 charts. (Mar.)
Forecast:This detailed study will probably be more talked about than read. It should generate controversy in the media, aided by a publication that coincides with President Bush's submitting of his first budget. Columbia clearly has high hopes for this book—it has hired an outside publicist, and Jansson will go on a 6-city speaking tour.
