$16 TRILLION MISTAKE

The Sixteen-Trillion-Dollar Mistake, Bruce S. Jansson, Columbia University Press, 2001

 

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2001

Choices about budget priorities are arguably the most important made by the federal government, profoundly affecting the well-being of citizens. Bruce Jansson documents how presidents from FDR to Clinton have made ill-advised choices that wasted trillions of dollars. Going beyond charges of corruption or bureaucratic waste, the book is an eye-opening exposé revealing innumerable useless projects (military as well as civilian), unnecessary tax concessions, and the use of interest payments to cover deficit spending, among other costly mistakes. Using Office of Management and Budget projections through 2004, Jansson shows how the madness continues -- and how an informed electorate can put an end to it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Regardless of the promises politicians make or the agendas they set, it is our federal budget that ultimately and most accurately reflects the U.S.'s "real" priorities. Jansson, who has taught at the University of California's School of Social Work for more than 25 years, analyzes social and domestic policy over the past 70 years through the prism of the budget. He has spent 10 years researching this current book, combing five presidential libraries and conducting extended computer analyses of budgetary data. Beginning with the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt ("when the U.S. first institutionalized a large federal budget"), Jansson faults government--regardless of the party in power--for squandering America's money on excessive military spending, tax concessions to the affluent, corporate welfare, outrageous pork-barrel projects, overpaying interest on the national debt, and just plain waste. He then demonstrates that this money could have supported instead free child care for women in need, primary-care health clinics, and dozens of other social investment programs. David Rouse
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Review

This isn't a polemical book, it's a somber one that makes you realize how routinely we've come to mistake absurd polemics for common sense.

(Paul Rosenberg Denver Post )

Jansson's analysis is persuasive on several points... will surely fuel additional interest.

(A. Scott Henderson, Furman University The Historian )

Provides a systematic, informative, and suprisingly absorbing survey...yields important insights.

(Mark H. Leff, University of Illinois--Urbana Journal of American History )

Jansson is able to critically juxtapose the Bush and Clinton presidencies of the late 1980s and 1990s, sharing compelling comparisons of various budgetary considerations... The Sixteen-Trillion-Dollar Mistake is an excellent source concerning the ongoing evolution of social policy in the United States, and the multiple political forces that can drive policy resource provision and implementation.

(David Woody, University of Texas at Arlington The Social Policy Journal )

There is no other book quite like this.... It could hardly appear at a better time.... Jansson writes lucidly and at times with some panache.... Breaks new ground.

(Virginia Quarterly Review )

[A] lucid, remarkably flowing, critical history of American government spending and national priorities from 1932 to the present.

(Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

Review

Whether or not you agree with Jansson's views on budget priorities, you're likely to find this both an interesting read and a useful and valuable discussion of national budget priorities debates over the past 70 years that you won't find anywhere else.

(Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities )

About the Author

Bruce S. Jansson is the author of Social Policy: From Theory to Political Practice, The Reluctant Welfare State, and many other books and articles on social policy and welfare. He teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.