Overview

"Economic Conservative/Social Liberal 2016 Revised Edition with Special Election Advisory by Mark Bragg ISBN-13: 978-0-692-66732-3 In 2014, America bought $508 billion more in foreign goods than foreigners bought from us. The largest single destroyer of jobs in America (nearly 30 million jobs have been exported) has been our enormous trade deficit But why is this subject never mentioned in presidential campaigns? For the simple reason that no one knows what to do about it. Most Members of Congress are lawyers with no real business experience or economic background. Originally created for the poor, Social Security was for those unable to support themselves in their old age--before it was forced on everyone as a savings account. Unfortunately, that money was stolen first to pay for the Vietnam War and then satisfy other ""unfunded federal liabilities"". Those are promises the federal government has made with no revenue to pay for them. Few people are aware that the missing money was replaced with IOUs, which Uncle Sam is now borrowing to repay. While author Mark Bragg agrees it was necessary for an environmental movement to force the government to clean the air and water, he says extremists have now taken over the federal bureaucracy and are using various federal laws to attack our food supply. Even Al Gore believes spending $7 billion a year to subsidize corn production for ethanol is senseless. He should know. He established the stupidity that allows 41% of our corn supply to be made into a corrosive fuel that costs more energy to make than it actually produces. Government jobs take money from private enterprises to spend on self-defeating welfare, a declining educational system, excessive military defense, and environmental extremism. Rather than generating any wealth, the government's expenditure are consuming it. Most politicians and virtually all bureaucrats don't know the difference between jobs that produce wealth and jobs that consume wealth and stop wealth production. In Economic Conservative/Social Liberal, Bragg offers a plan for fixing the dire problems our country currently faces. Written to engage, educate, and inspire further discussion, the book is intended for any reader interested in gaining greater political and economic understanding for challenging the status quo. Although it is bound to boil the blood of the left and the right, it will make perfect sense to many of the Independent Voters who will decide the next election. You can visit the author's site at independentvoters.com."

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From Kirkus Reviews A list of political cures for what ails the United States, offered in a spirit of bipartisanship. In this age of schismatic political arguments, there has been no shortage of attempts at compromise. In his debut book, Bragg tries to harmonize the two warring parties by combining the embrace of free markets and fiscal restraint typical of the right, and a socially liberal tolerance that has become the progressive signature of the left. Bragg lucidly catalogs his policy points in quick succession, hitting all the key issues. The author largely agrees with conservatives that the power of free market economics needs to be harnessed to produce wealth and redress increasing inequality, which would mean that liberals need to repair their toxic relations with the world of commerce. But he castigates conservatives for betraying their own libertarian principles by insisting on intrusions into the public sphere when it comes to issues like religion, homosexuality, and abortion. Often, the position Bragg endorses is a moderate amalgam of both political perspectives. For example, he essentially agrees with Bill Clinton's triangulation of the welfare issue, and advocates generous subsidies to individuals in genuine need, and none to those unwilling to help themselves. He also takes quite seriously ecological responsibility as a civic obligation, but excoriates environmental extremists for needlessly hobbling the economy. Bragg's prose is frank and lively, although he tends to reduce monstrously complex problems to matters of simple common sense. For example, it's not economically obvious that a national trade deficit is catastrophic; in fact, experts are divided on this issue. Also, it's not clear that his free market version of Smoot-Hawley tariffs is a pro-market solution, or that it wouldn't court more harm than help. One could also cite the political impracticality of some of his counsel; neither party seems to favor the elimination of the Department of Education, however dysfunctional it may be. The author seems to consider the nation's circumstances so dire that the hunger for compromise and drastic action has reached a peak. America is broke, despairing and declining economically at a rate so fast it is almost unimaginable. It is time for Draconian measures. This book is too short to make all of Bragg's claims plausible, but it is still a well-crafted reminder that any political progress will require bipartisan unity. A vibrant attempt to articulate a grand compromise between the American left and right.

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