The Federal Budget

Natural Right and History

Leo Strauss

Six lectures delivered at the University of Chicago, Autumn, 1949, under the auspices of the Charles R. Walgreen Foundation for the Study of American Institutions.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Robert Nozick

Presents arguments in support of the author's libertarian views on the nature of the state, its legitimate functions, and its justifications.

Reviving the American Dream

The Economy, the States, and the Federal Government

Alice M. Rivlin

The American dream is fading: for nearly two decades, the economy has been performing below par, the quality of life has deteriorated, and the government has not confronted the public problems that concern citizens most. In this provocative book, Alice Rivlin offers a straightforward, nontechnical look at the issues threatening the American dream and proposes a solution: restructure responsibilities between the federal and state government. Under her plan, the federal government would eliminate most of its programs in education, housing, highways, social services, economic development, and job training, enabling it to move the federal budget from deficit toward surplus. States would pick up these responsibilities, carrying out a ""productivity agenda"" to revitalize the American economy. Common shared taxes would give the state adequate revenues to carry out their tasks and would reduce intrastate competition and disparities. The federal government would be freer to deal with increasingly complex international issues and would retain responsibility for programs requiring national uniformity. A primary federal job would be the reform of health care financing to ensure control of costs and to mandate basic insurance coverage for everyone. Published in the summer of 1992, Reviving the American Dream was read by presidential candidate Bill Clinton; by year's end, President Clinton appointed its author, Alice Rivlin, as deputy budget director. Today, the ideal in Rivlin's book and Rivlin herself are having an impact inside the administration. Selected as one of Choice magazine's Outstanding Books of 1993

Democracy in America and Two Essays on America

Alexis de Tocqueville

A contemporary study of the early American nation and its evolving democracy, from a French aristocrat and sociologist In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, set out from post-revolutionary France on a journey across America that would take him 9 months and cover 7,000 miles. The result was Democracy in America, a subtle and prescient analysis of the life and institutions of 19th-century America. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing deomcratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His study of the strengths and weaknesses of an evolving democratic society has been quoted by every American president since Eisenhower, and remains a key point of reference for any discussion of the American nation or the democratic system. This new edition is the only one that contains all Tocqueville's writings on America, including the rarely-translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an account of Tocqueville's travels in Michigan among the Iroquois, and Excursion to Lake Oneida. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Praise from a Future Generation

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the First Generation Critics of the Warren Report

John Kelin

Finely written and meticulously documented, this book describes how--very early on--a small group of ordinary citizens began extraordinary efforts to demonstrate that the JFK assassination could not have happened the way the government said it did. In time, their efforts had an enormous impact on public opinion, but this account concentrates on the months before the controversy caught fire, when people with skeptical viewpoints still saw themselves as lone voices. Material seldom seen by the public includes a suppressed photograph of the grassy knoll, an unpublished 1964 interview with an eyewitness, the earliest mention of the "magic bullet," and an analysis of the commotion surrounding New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's charge that anti-Castro CIA operatives were involved.

The Almanac Of Women And Minorities In American Politics

Mart Martin

The culmination of two years of research, this is a reference to women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, native minorities, homosexuals and lesbians who have been elected to US state or national posts, with additional information on local positions. Non-partisan and non-judgemental, the book focuses on the political accomplishments of these people, rather than taking a biographical approach. It also features a chronology from colonial times to the present for each ethnic group, a roster of political achievements in the United States by members of each group, details of women who have served as head of state/government in other countries, and "notable firsts" biographical sketches in each section.