In a very real sense, everyone who has taught me economics and history has had a hand in the creation of this book. At Swarthmore College I benefited from the instruction of Joseph W. Conard, Frank Pierson, and William Brown in the Department of Economics and Jean Herskovits and Robert Bannister in the Department of History. At Cambridge University I was supervised by Robin L. Marris, Joan Robinson, and Bob Rowthorn of the Faculty of Economics. At the University of Wisconsin I had the pleasure of studying with economists Jeffrey G. Williamson, John Conlisk, William P. Glade, Peter Lindert, Rondo Cameron, and John Bowman, historians William A. Williams and Morton Rothstein, and Latin Americanist Maurice Zeitlin.
This book results from the research and writing I accomplished during a sabbatical in the 1994–95 academic year. However, my interest dates back to my first sabbatical, in 1980. For both sabbaticals, I want to acknowledge the institutional support of Western New En-gland College, where I have taught for over two decades. Part of my 1980 sabbatical was spent at Cambridge University. This gave me the opportunity to reflect about the gathering storm of conservative economic criticism of the United States government policies from the early 1960s through the end of the 1970s. When I resumed teaching, I was able to create a course on Reaganomics, which I taught from 1982 to 1989.
There are many people at Western New England College whom I want to thank. Student assistants Michelle Hinojosa and Andrea Higgins have been a tremendous help. Michelle has worked for three years tracking down materials, duplicating and inputting data, and Andrea has assisted this past year. The college duplicating-center staff, especially Sandy Mackin and Jim Garrison, have been efficient and cooperative throughout, even in the last-minute rushes to meet the publisher’s deadlines.
The staff in the Academic Computing Department, Russ Birchall, Janet Condon, Kevin Gorman, Mike Hathaway and Steve Narmontas, have worked on my equipment, patiently taught me new word-processing skills, run old disks through their machines to produce usable files, and in general been there for me whenever I had a question or problem. Western New England College is fortunate to have such hard-working professionals in these crucial positions.
Donna Utter, faculty secretary in the School of Arts and Sciences, has been tireless in her efforts to produce a manuscript to the publisher’s specifications. I never would have made my deadlines without her help. Avril McGougan, Arts and Sciences secretary, also helped with printing when Donna was not available.
Suzanne Garber and Dan Eckert, the interlibrary loan staff of the D’Amour Library of Western New England College, have been vigorous in their pursuit of both books and journal articles unavailable at the college library. Nancy Contois and Sarah Schweer have been very helpful in ordering books that were of use for my research. I thank Valerie Bolden-Marshall for her good-humored forbearance with my habit of hoarding library books, and May Stack for the support she gives to the academic community. Special thanks are due to Iris Bradley-Lovekin of the periodicals department for some last-minute research assistance.
Finally, I wish to thank Greg Michael, director of Career and Human Resources at the college for discussions of the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act on his work and the college in general. Greg also shared with me materials prepared by the College and University Personnel Association about the ADA as well as an ADA Compliance Manual.
For archival research, I have asked much of many government workers who have cheerfully assisted me in finding important materials. At the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce I have been helped by Virginia Mannering, Michael Webb, and Phyllis Barnes. At the Bureau of the Census, Jean Tash sent me much-needed household and family income data. At the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I was helped by Anne Foster, John Glaser, Thomas Nardone, and Brian Sliker. At the Bureau of the Public Debt, Department of the Treasury, Lori DeRose sent to me a full series of the National Debt of the United States. I want to thank Carolyn Cunningham, Adrienne Scott, Shirley Tabb, and Shelia Wade at the Freedom of Information Section of the Federal Reserve Board, as well as Frank Russek at the Congressional Budget Office and Linda Schimmel of the CBO’s Publication Services department. All of these public servants do important work in helping citizens learn about the economic realities of the times in which we live. Ironically, these workers were defined as “nonessential” when the two partial government shutdowns occurred in 1995 and 1996. They, as well as the citizens who depend on the information they collect, analyze, and distribute, were hostages to partisan politics of the worst kind.
I have also been assisted by people at various nongovernmental organizations. At the Urban Institute, C. Eugene Steuerle has been a source of good advice about the many materials available there. At the Center for the Study of American Business, Melinda Warren shared various reports on the slowdown and then speedup in the growth of federal regulatory intrusion into the private sector since the early Reagan years. At the Economic Policy Institute, John Schmitt and Edie Rasell called my attention to various policy issue briefs. At the Employee Benefit Research Institute, I was assisted by Bill Pierron. My daughter Ivy helped me find material in the Congressional Record and the Library of Congress, and also helped me get the 1993 Green Book, the best source for research materials about government entitlement programs. In this regard, I want to acknowledge the positive role of the office of Congressman Richard Neal of Massachusetts. The library at Western New England College received copies of the Economic Report of the President as soon as they were off the presses in February of each year thanks to his efforts. Full understanding of the American economy and the role of government begins with the statistics in the annual reports of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and the annual or biannual publication of the House Ways and Means Committee (the Green Book).
Several years before beginning work on this book, I presented some of my findings at a workshop for Western New England College faculty. I thank John Andrulis, Herbert Eskot, and Richard Skillman for important feedback on that very early effort. My interpretation of the first few years of the post-1983 recovery was published in Challenge in 1987, and I want to thank the then editor, Richard Bartal, for his encouragement and support as I developed my ideas. In addition, discussions with colleagues at the Center for Popular Economics were extremely valuable for me. In the early phases of my writing, I benefited from the encouragement and support of historian Gerald Markowitz, a good friend and colleague for the past thirty-five years. My wife, Ann, an accomplished writer, helped me with the earliest versions of the manuscript. Thomas Weisskopf, C. Eugene Steuerle, Alain Jehlen, Emmett Barcalow, and John Andrulis read some sections and made a number of valuable suggestions. In two separate courses, a number of students read the manuscript in its early drafts. I thank Tara Bishop, David Cayer, Paul Dias, Michael Flaherty, Amy Gardner, Ting Giang, Melissa Hiltz, Robert Kusiac, Edward Lavoie, Heather Lebiedz, Susan Moredock, David Rollend, Christal Russo, K. Jonas Svallin, and Christopher Wsolek for their feedback.
When it came time to submit the manuscript, I benefited from the detailed criticisms of Ellen McCarthy of the University of Michigan Press and Gerald Epstein and Robert Pollin, the readers for the press. Noam Chomsky read the entire manuscript and offered many trenchant criticisms. My colleague and good friend of twenty-seven years at Western New England College, John Anzalotti, also read the manuscript with a keen historian’s eye. I know for certain that both the manuscript and my own thinking have benefited from all of their criticisms, even the ones I disagreed with.
Gerald Markowitz read the entire manuscript just before its final submission. His encouragement and suggestions are very important to me, not just in writing this book. Jerry and I have shared a lifelong love of the study and writing of history. It goes without saying, however, that neither Jerry nor any of the other readers should be held responsible for errors and limitations in the book. As the manuscript leaves my hands in a malleable form for the final time I want to thank Melissa Holcombe and Richard Isomaki of the University of Michigan Press for their help in improving the final version at the copyediting stage.
Just as she had three years ago, my wife, Ann, helped with the writing of a number of recently written chapters. Given the incredible demands of her schedule, I greatly appreciate the time and effort she has given to help improve the manuscript in a number of key places. During the years I have worked on this project, in fact for the past thirty-two years, Ann has been a loving companion, soul mate, and intellectual support. For her constant faith in the value of the project and in my ability to see it through to completion, I cannot thank her enough.
Our children Ivy and Greg also share in whatever success I have achieved. As they have grown to adulthood and entered the uncertain economy of the 1990s, their hard work, aspirations, and accomplishments have reminded me why we always strive to leave the world a little better than we found it. I thank them for the lives they are leading, which continue to make Ann and me proud to be their parents.