Dc Confidential ― Inside the Five Tricks of Washington

You think you know why our government in Washington is broken, but you really don't. You think it's broken because politicians curry favor with special interests and activists of the Left or Right. There's something to that and it helps explain why these politicians can't find common ground, but it misses the root cause. A half century ago, elected officials in Congress and the White House figured out a new system for enacting laws and spending programs--one that lets them take credit for promising good news while avoiding blame for government producing bad results. With five key tricks, politicians of both parties now avoid accounting to us for what government actually does to us.

While you understand that these politicians seem to pull rabbits out of hats, hardly anyone sees the sleight of hand by which they get away with their tricks. Otherwise, their tricks wouldn't work. DC Confidential exposes the sleights of hand. Once they are brought to light, we can stop the tricks, fix our broken government, and make Washington work for us once again.

The book explains the necessary reform and lays out an action plan to put it in place. Stopping the tricks would be a constructive, inclusive response to the anger that Americans from across the political spectrum feel toward what should be our government.

During the 1970s, David Schoenbrod was a leader of the Natural Resources Defense Council, heading campaigns to get lead out of gasoline, protect the environment of Puerto Rico, and protect New Yorkers from automotive air pollution. Now he is Trustee Professor at New York Law School and a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Schoenbrod has frequently contributed to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other newspapers and periodicals. His books include Power without Responsibility, Democracy by Decree, Saving Our Environment from Washington, and Breaking the Logjam. He has a graduate degree in economics from Oxford (which he attended as a Marshall Scholar) and a law degree from Yale.