Shortly after be realized his long-held dream by masterminding the first Republican takeover of the House and Senate in forty years, House Speaker Newt Gingrich committed his followers to a daring and perilous goal: by scaling back or dismantling some of the nation's most cherished social welfare programs, they would balance the budget. Eliminating the deficit, once just one facet of the Republicans' plan to change America, soon became an all-consuming obsession. But barely a year later, in the grim winter of 1995, Gingrich and his troops were in desperate retreat as their poll ratings plummeted and a government shutdown they had helped engineer enraged the voters.

Gingrich was hardly the first politician to promise to balance the budget. So did George Bush, Ross Perot, Ronald Reagan, and dozens more. All of them wound up like Gingrich - humbled, embarrassed, and in some cases out of office after they tried to convert breezy campaign promises into reality.

Why is it so hard to make America's checkbook balance? Why has the nation managed only eight budget surpluses in the half century since the end of World War II? Why did the first Republican Congress since the 1950s fail so miserably to redeem its most important promise to voters?

Mirage tells why. Here, in compelling detail, are the inside stories of two decades of often noble but usually unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem that has vexed the nation throughout its history.

From Library Journal

Despite the claims of its title, this book, by two reporters who work for Congressional Quarterly and the Washington Post, respectively, is really the history of the last two years of congressional-presidential budgetary politics told as a melodrama. Beginning in February 1995 and ending with Clinton's reelection, the story is mostly told in flashback. As background the authors provide a brief review of America's deficit spending habits from 1690 to 1981; they then give extensive, behind-the-scenes treatment to the Reagan and Bush years. This book has much in common with earlier works that attempted to explicate budgetary politics?notably David Stockman's The Triumph of Politics (LJ 7/86) and Jeffrey Birnbaum and Allan Murray's Showdown at Gucci Gulch (LJ 9/1/87)?but will also provide insight for those seeking a better understanding of the government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996. Eminently readable and accessible.

Book Dimension　

Height (mm) 243 　　　　　　　　　　Width (mm) 165