Uncertain Legacies

An analysis of modern U.S.budget policy. It presents a balanced appraisal of the causes and cures of deficits than found in current ideological and partisan diagnoses. By analyzing the evolution of spending and tax policy during the period of "modern budget policy" - from the New Deal through the Regan administration - it provides a necessary perspective on the policy conflicts that have frustrated a long series of budget-control efforts. This book has several distinctive features. First, it places the current deficit-control issue in the context of long-term alterations in the size and composition of the budget. Second, it argues that effective, lasting deficit control cannot be achieved without significant and unpopular changes in entitlement programme, such as social security and medicare. Third, it proposes a procedural reform in the budget process; presidential reconciliation, which would provide the president with an integrated annual budget, enhancing the opportunity for presidential leadership on difficult budget-control issues. Ippolito's analysis does not assume that deficit control is the only legitimate budget policy concern.
Other policy choices are debated fully and openly in the political process. The author's goal is to contribute to that debate by providing perspective and clarifying choices.