"A compelling book on budget-balancing, past and present. Not only is it a useful historical reference work but it is amazingly relevant to today's headlines." --Business Week

Why did it take twenty-five years to balance the federal budget? And why did that goal seem politically impossible up until the last possible moment? Why hasn't the nation achieved a single budget surplus since 1969? Why did the first Republican Congress since the 1950s fail so miserably to redeem its most important promise to voters? In Balancing Act, George Hager and Eric Pianin, two of the country's top political...