Debacle

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised 'a net spending cut' to make government smaller in order to reduce the deficit. But this huge increase in government spending and debt, and the resulting prospect of higher taxes, will make America a poorer country. Are Americans happier because the government has determined where this money should be spent? According to John Lott and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, the answer is no, and in Debacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future they explain why.

Obama's economic policies have raised unemployment, slowed economic growth, dramatically raised the national debt, squandered taxpayer money through poor investments, and damaged the housing market. The book explains why Obama's policies on spending, taxes, and regulation have all worked to harm the recovery, increase unemployment, and depress housing prices.

• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficits that President Obama proposes for the years from 2011 through 2020 come to a staggering $126,000 per family of four, and John Lott and Grover Norquist make clear why the costs outweigh the benefits
• Explains why Keynesian economics is more a way of transferring wealth to political constituencies than a legitimate economic theory for understanding how the economy operates
• Posits that Obama's economic policies were more an opportunity 'to do big things' than to solve the country's economic problems

Arguing that the policies of the Obama administration have created widespread economic chaos, Debacle is a bleak look at American finance from Grover Norquist.

Grover G. Norquist is President of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a taxpayer advocacy group he founded in 1985 at the request of President Reagan. ATR is a coalition of taxpayer groups, individuals, and businesses opposed to higher taxes at the federal, state, and local levels. It organizes the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which asks all candidates for federal and state office to commit themselves in writing to oppose all tax increases.

John R. Lott, Jr is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice, and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission from 1988 to 1989. Lott has published over 100 articles in academic journals. He has authored six books including More Guns, Less Crime; Freedomnomics; The Bias Against Guns; and Are Predatory Commitments Credible? He is a contributor and a weekly columnist for FoxNews.com. Lott's Opinion pieces have appeared in several publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune, and he has appeared on television programs including ABC and NBC National Evening News broadcasts, Fox News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and the Today Show. He received his PhD in economics from UCLA.