A hard-hitting kickoff to the 2016 election campaign.
A call to arms to defend Social Security from sneak attack.
Co-authors Altman (The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble, 2005, etc.) and Kingson (Social Work/Syracuse Univ.; Lessons from Joan: Living and Loving with Cancer, a Husband's Story, 2006, etc.), who both served as staff advisers to the 1982 National Commission on Social Security and were founding board members of the National Academy on Social Insurance, expose the method of guerrilla warfare still employed by conservatives to undermine the social-welfare system. “This is not a time to accept further cuts to our Social Security as 'reasonable compromise,' as little 'tweaks,' that will do no lasting harm,” they write. On the contrary, they believe what is required is an expansion of the social-welfare system to achieve “greater economic security for all of America's working families.” A first step is to counter “the misinformation...so deeply imbedded in the minds of the general public”—e.g., the false claim that Social Security is economically unsustainable and imposes an unacceptable burden on the younger generation. In his cogent foreword, David Cay Johnston (Undivided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality, 2014, etc.) describes this misinformation and reminds readers that the preamble to the Constitution includes a statement of the need to “promote the general Welfare.” Altman and Kingson provide a historical overview of social legislation since the passage of the original Social Security Act in 1935, give a detailed explanation about why the Social Security trust fund is solvent and will remain so, and explain why conservatives have been unable to derail the system due to broad-based popular support. Even Ronald Reagan, the champion of reducing the role of government, recognized that Social Security (dubbed by House Speaker Tip O'Neill as “the third rail of politics”) was unopposable.
A hard-hitting kickoff to the 2016 election campaign.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62097-037-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
The author’s literate, committed voice sometimes disappears in his tangled wood of allusion and quotation.
The veteran Washington Post columnist and TV commentator offers a richly documented history of and argument for a wider embrace of conservative political values.
“Richly documented” is an understatement. Will (A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred, 2014, etc.) is nothing if not a thorough, dedicated researcher and thinker, but he’s often prolix. Many of the historical figures the author references will come as no surprise—e.g., Burke, Moynihan, Madison, Locke—and there are also plenty from the literary world; these include allusions to Twain and Fitzgerald, whose closing sentences from The Great Gatsby provide Will with a metaphor for his principal points. Not much the Pulitzer winner offers here will surprise those who have paid attention to his rhetoric over the decades. His three American heroes remain: Washington, Lincoln, John Marshall. He thinks the U.S. government has grown too big, that it is too interested in providing entitlements (Will is a believer in much more self-reliance than he sees evident today), that schools and universities should do a much more rigorous job of transmitting the Western historical heritage, and that progressives just don’t understand how America is supposed to work. However, in one chapter, he may surprise some readers: He declares he is an atheist (though “amiable, low-voltage”), and he spends a few pages reminding us that the founders were not particularly religious and that we must observe the separation of church and state. He praises the civil rights movement but asserts that much of it has gone wrong. Oddly missing are direct references to the current occupant of the White House, though Will does zing many of his predecessors (from both parties but principally Democrats), mostly for their failure to comprehend fully the concept of liberty that fueled the founders.
The author’s literate, committed voice sometimes disappears in his tangled wood of allusion and quotation.Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-48093-2
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Daniels emerges as a force to be reckoned with—and not someone to cross. Of interest to politics junkies but with plenty of...
A lively, candid memoir from person-in-the-news Daniels.
The author is a household name for just one reason, as she allows—adding, though, that “my life is a lot more interesting than an encounter with Donald Trump.” So it is, and not without considerable effort on her part. Daniels—not her real name, but one, she points out, that she owns, unlike the majority of porn stars—grew up on the wrong side of town, the product of a broken home with few prospects, but she is just as clearly a person of real intelligence and considerable business know-how. Those attributes were not the reason that Trump called her on a fateful night more than a decade ago, but she put them to work, so much so that in some preliminary conversation, he proclaimed—by her account, his talk is blustery and insistent—that “our businesses are kind of a lot alike, but different.” The talk led to what “may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.” The details are deeply unpleasant, but Daniels adds nuance to the record: She doesn’t find it creepy that Trump likened her to his daughter, and she reckons that as a reality show host, he had a few points in his favor even if he failed to deliver on a promise to get her on The Apprentice. The author’s 15 minutes arrived a dozen years later, when she was exposed as the recipient of campaign hush money. Her account of succeeding events is fast-paced and full of sharp asides pointing to the general sleaziness of most of the players and the ugliness of politics, especially the Trumpian kind, which makes the porn industry look squeaky-clean by comparison.
Daniels emerges as a force to be reckoned with—and not someone to cross. Of interest to politics junkies but with plenty of lessons on taking charge of one’s own life.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-20556-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2018
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