For years now, Americans have called for a balanced budget, debt reduction, and fiscal sanity. Yet the federal government continues to spend beyond its income, driving the level of federal debt up and public confidence down. Why is that? Why have the monsters of public financepork-barrel spending, entitlements, and the deficitremained unchecked for so long? What effects have they had on our economy and our politics? What, if anything, can be done to tame them?This concise, well-written primer of American political economy offers answers to these questions and more, all the while covering a...
For years now, Americans have called for a balanced budget, debt reduction, and fiscal sanity. Yet the federal government continues to spend beyond it...
Americans are disenchanted with politics, their government, and their leaders. For evidence, we don't have to look very far: the elections of 1994 turned over control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, and the new House Republicans' Contract with America was the biggest single anti-government initiative since the Boston Tea Party, with term limits, campaign finance reform, and a balanced budget amendment high on its list of priorities. But before Americans climb again on a new bandwagon of government restructuring, they would do well to listen to Cal Mackenzie's admonitions in The...
Americans are disenchanted with politics, their government, and their leaders. For evidence, we don't have to look very far: the elections of 1994 tur...
According to outspoken presidential scholar Cal Mackenzie, the presidential appointments process is a national disgrace. It encourages bullies and emboldens demagogues, silences the voices of responsibility, and nourishes the lowest forms of partisan combat. It uses innocent citizens as pawns in the petty games of politicians and stains the reputations of good people. It routinely violates fundamental democratic principles, undermines the quality and consistency of public management, and breaches simple decency. In short, at a time when the quality of political leadership in government...
According to outspoken presidential scholar Cal Mackenzie, the presidential appointments process is a national disgrace. It encourages bullies and ...
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10930, the first step in a long series of efforts to regulate the ethical behavior of executive branch officials. A few years later Lyndon B. Johnson required all senior officials to report assets and sources of non-government income to the Civil Service Commission. The reaction to Watergate opened the floodgates to more laws and rules: the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, subsequent expansions of that act in the 1980s and 1990s, and sweeping executive orders by Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The consequence of...
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10930, the first step in a long series of efforts to regulate the ethical behavior of exe...
An engaging be hind-the-scenes look at the lesser-known forces that fueled the profound social reforms of the 1960s Provocative and incisive, The Liberal Hour reveals how Washington, so often portrayed as a target of reform in the 1960s, was in fact the era's most effective engine of change. The movements of the 1960s have always drawn the most attention from the decade's chroniclers, but it was in the halls of government-so often the target of protesters' wrath-that the enduring reforms of the era were produced. With nuance and panache, Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot...
An engaging be hind-the-scenes look at the lesser-known forces that fueled the profound social reforms of the 1960s Provocative and incisi...
Written by an educator and a national authority on ethics and featuring detailed real-life case studies, this volume outlines the relationship between ethical practices and school success.
Written by an educator and a national authority on ethics and featuring detailed real-life case studies, this volume outlines the relationship between...
The Imperiled Presidency: Presidential Leadership in the 21st Century calls for a dramatic re-evaluation of the American president's role within the separation of powers system. In contrast with claims by academics, pundits, media, and members of Congress, this provocative new book argues that the contemporary American presidency is too weak rather than too strong. Cal Mackenzie offers the contrarian argument that the real constitutional crisis in contemporary American politics is not the centralization and accumulation of power in the presidency, but rather that effective governance is...
The Imperiled Presidency: Presidential Leadership in the 21st Century calls for a dramatic re-evaluation of the American president's role within the s...
The Imperiled Presidency: Presidential Leadership in the 21st Century calls for a dramatic re-evaluation of the American president's role within the separation of powers system. In contrast with claims by academics, pundits, media, and members of Congress, this provocative new book argues that the contemporary American presidency is too weak rather than too strong. Cal Mackenzie offers the contrarian argument that the real constitutional crisis in contemporary American politics is not the centralization and accumulation of power in the presidency, but rather that effective governance is...
The Imperiled Presidency: Presidential Leadership in the 21st Century calls for a dramatic re-evaluation of the American president's role within the s...