Bruce Bartlett: "Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America"

I saw this on the shelf today in Barnes & Noble and thought that some of you would ind it interesting. Bartlett is a vocal opponent of Bush's scheme to install a National Sales Tax ("Fair Tax"). He addresses it, among other topics, in this new book.

"You know, I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously," Bush said, according to a Reuters report.

Bruce Bartlett: "A National Sales Tax No Vote: The rates would be vastly higher than what you might suspect."

:patriot:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385518277/sr=8-1/qid=1147029161/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7123407-6757563?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Liberal commentators gripe so frequently about the current administration that it's become easy to tune them out, but when Bartlett, a former member of the Reagan White House, says George W. Bush has betrayed the conservative movement, his conservative credentials command attention. Bartlett's attack boils down to one key premise: Bush is a shallow opportunist who has cast aside the principles of the "Reagan Revolution" for short-term political gains that may wind up hurting the American economy as badly as, if not worse than, Nixon's did. As part of a simple, point-by-point critique of Bush's "finger-in-the-wind" approach to economic leadership, Bartlett singles out the Medicare prescription drug bill of 2003— "the worst piece of legislation ever enacted"—as a particularly egregious example of the increases in government spending that will, he says, make tax hikes inevitable. Bush has further weakened the Republican Party by failing to establish a successor who can run in the next election, Bartlett says. If the Reaganites want to restore the party's tradition of fiscal conservatism and small government, he worries, let alone keep the Democrats out of the White House, they will have their work cut out for them. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bartlett, an economist and former Reagan administration official, attacks the Bush administration hard but from the political Right. Challenging Bush's conservative principles of operation and credentials, Bartlett actually gives former president Clinton more credit for following conservative economic principles. In contrast, the Bush administration has been marked by shortsightedness, if not anti--intellectualism, too willing to reward friends without regard to competency and to punish as enemies those who deviate from the party line. Bush's shortcomings include his drug bill, trade policies, and expanded regulatory requirements. Interestingly, Bartlett concludes that Bush's relentless effort to cut taxes will leave an unenviable legacy for a conservative--the need for America's largest tax increase. Bartlett also takes the administration to task for corruption that violates the principles of difference the Republican Party declared during the campaign against Clinton. This is a worthy critique, one that the administration will not be able to dismiss as liberal propaganda. Vernon Ford Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

No more need be said. That is the personality trait that made him the perfect puppet for the Neocons. He was the perfect figurehead for their scam.

...is that it's coming from Bartlett, a conservative. The implication (in BOTH of those editorial reviews) that ANY statement from the Democrats or "liberals" lacks credibility is pretty strong. But hey...I'm willing to overlook that if people buy this book, read it, and understand what Bush is attempting.

Discussions of the National Sales Tax tend to land with a thud on DU...maybe because people don't see it as an immediate threat. Although I DO have one person who consistently drops into my N.S.T. threads to tell me I have no idea od what I'm talking about (even though I have a list of links and references as long as my arm).

:evilgrin:

The source of the enlightenment should not really matter.
If Bartlett's credentials encourage more conservatives to see the light that many of us have seen from day one, all the bettr.

If they can finally put nation above politics, it would go a long way to bringing back some rationality, and perhaps some humanity, to this government, and this country

page 79

"Keep in mind that up until this point, Bush had not vetoed a single bill. This may explain why
George Bush had so much trouble getting traction on his Social Security Bill. He simply had
no crediblity as someone who cares one whit about whether the nation can afford all the entitlement promises it made."