Peddling Prosperity

Peddling Prosperity is the best primer around U.S. economic history. The past twenty years have been an era of economic disappointment in the United States. They have also been a time of intense economic debate, as rival ideologies contend for policy influence. But strange things have happened to economic ideas on their way to power: they've been hijacked by policy entrepreneurs―economic snake-oil salesmen, right or left, who offer easy answers to hard problems. Supply-siders rose to power with Ronald Reagan and not only cured nothing but left behind a $3 trillion debt. This wonderfully received book finds an unhappy parallel in those who shape policy within the Clinton administration.