Overview

One of our most prescient political observers provides a sobering account of how pitched battles over scarce resources will increasingly define American politics in the coming years--and how we might avoid, or at least mitigate, the damage from these ideological and economic battles. In a matter of just three years, a bitter struggle over limited resources has enveloped political discourse at every level in the United States. Fights between haves and have-nots over health care, unemployment benefits, funding for mortgage write-downs, economic stimulus legislation--and, at the local level, over cuts in police protection, garbage collection, and in the number of teachers--have dominated the debate. Elected officials are being forced to make zero-sum choices--or worse, choices with no winners. Resource competition between Democrats and Republicans has left each side determined to protect what it has at the expense of the other. The major issues of the next few years--long-term deficit reduction; entitlement reform, notably of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; major cuts in defense spending; and difficulty in financing a continuation of American international involvement--suggest that your-gain-is-my-loss politics will inevitably intensify.

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Advance Praise for The Age of Austerity <p> Tom Edsall is a tough realist with a large conscience and a brilliant mind. That's why he's one of the country's most important political writers: he faces difficult truths that others try to avoid and discerns important trends before they become trendy--and before most people even notice them. He's done that again with The Age of Austerity, exactly the right book asking the right questions for our moment. <br>-- E. J. Dionne, Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Politics <br> <br> As economists handicap the odds of a new recession and speculate about a lost decade for the U.S. economy, Tom Edsall offers a troubling vision of American political and social conflict in circumstances of low growth and intense polarization. To avoid what he dubs a brutish future, our divided leaders will have to come together around a plan for renewed growth that is bound to offend the core constituencies of both political parties. If Edsall ise

Advance Praise for The Age of Austerity <p> Thomas Edsall has written some of the most important and lasting political books of the last 25 years. Here, he deftly places the debates and controversies of the current moment in a broader historical and policy context. And he explains clearly why our economic woes have political causes--a fact that most people don't quite believe, but one that urgently needs to be understood. <br>-- Michael Tomasky, political columnist for Newsweek and the Daily Beast <p> Tom Edsall is a tough realist with a large conscience and a brilliant mind. That's why he's one of the country's most important political writers: he faces difficult truths that others try to avoid and discerns important trends before they become trendy--and before most people even notice them. He's done that again with The Age of Austerity, exactly the right book asking the right questions for our moment. <br>-- E. J. Dionne, Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Po

Author Information

"Thomas Edsall is an American journalist and academic, best known for his 25 years covering politics for the ""Washington Post."" He holds the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professorship in Public Affairs Journalism at Columbia University, and writes an online 2012 election column for the ""New York Times."" In addition, he is a correspondent for ""The New Republic,"" and the author of ""Chain Reaction,"" a Pulitzer Prize finalist (1992), ""The New Politics of Equality"" (1984), and ""Building Red America"" (2006), among other works. Edsall is also the winner of the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association. Mr. Edsall lives in New York and Washington, D.C. with his wife, Mary."

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