The Government Racket 2000: All New Washington Waste from A to Z

by Martin L. Gross

Book Overview

In 1992, Martin L. Gross shocked the nation with his New York Times bestseller, The Government Racket: Washington Waste A to Z, after whcih he testified before Congress five times on hidden... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380787849
• ISBN13: 9780380787845
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Feed the pig

In this very revealing book Gross, with power and wit exposes the uncontrolled spending in our government. In summary he says: "through investigative reporting, research and analysis, study of the budget documents, and interviews with scores of agency officials, the federal government will be dissected----in a non-partison matter". Though I did find his treatment of doctors and social health care a bit off. From Agriculture to Zoos, these pages are filled with numerous short examples that focus on key spending programs that are squandering our money. Gross offers a simple solution for each example. If you are not already fed up with Washington enough, what is contained in this book will only exasperate your feelings more. Many government subsidies go to individuals that don't need them. This system of giveaways only encourages fraud. Many of these programs are obsolete but continue anyway. It is rare to find a government project that works. Washington should not be in this business; we should look to it to set and uphold laws and defend our Nation, that is all. In actuality, no one is in charge on Capital Hill. Maybe we need to bring in a financial advisor from the private sector and start from scratch. Wish you well Scott

cornucopia of government waste

THE GOVERNMENT RACKET (1992) by Martin L. Gross The Government Racket is a great introduction to wasteful government spending practices. The chapters are organized into chapters related to either a part of the government (Dept of Agriculture, Congress, pentagon, Vice President, etc), a government program (medicare, national archives, social security) or a beneficiary of wasteful spending (chauffeurs, consultants, universities). An obvious response would be "don't we need to spend money on these things in order for them to exist? In most cases Gross does not argue that we need to eliminate these parts of spending, only cut out the unnecessary fat. For example, the Vice President's housekeeper earns $50,000 (pg.236). Gross attempts to end many of the chapters with a solution to cut spending. Many of these expenditures are so enormous that this book may come across as cartoonish or satirical. Why did $249,000 of a research grant to Stanford go to paying for a parking lot (pg.197)? What happened to the $11 billion surplus in gasoline taxes that was appropriated by the Treasury Department (pg. 102)? Why is the true amount of the segregated social security trust fund a mystery in spite of higher social security taxes (pg. 208)? These are some of the questions Gross asks. More than anything else, the book is a call for increased transparency and accountability in government, especially with regards to the budget. There is an entire chapter on Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) who is famous for securing federal spending for his state in the form of "pork". One could also devote an entire chapter to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), whom the Citizens Against Government Waste names as having won more pork per capita than any other senator eight of the past nine years! This is a quick and easy read and should appeal to anybody who wants to know the extent of the bloated budget. This book has been updated at least two times, first as a "2000 edition" and then "2000 and Beyond".

A great reference book, but probably not readable

I bought this book because of the first edition published in 1993, which I used extensively in writing my cases for debate tournaments in high school. As for just regular reading material, I would not recommend it. I can not imagine just reading this book all the way through just for the fun of it, but it does make a great reference for all of those high school debaters out there looking for wasteful programs to cut to fund their cases. Outside of that, I don't see much use for the book.

Government robbery

I read a book in three hours. If you want to see how US democracy works read this book. You'll probably see that our democracy rates extremly low, although apolitic as American people are we may think that we're the greatest democratic society in the world. Well, this book will prove we're not and not only that, it'll show us how an average american citizen CANNOT do anything about our government robbing us.

Essential to freedom

Martin Gross updates his 93 bestseller with a treasurehouse of new outrages and rock solid statistics. Read this book and then insist on givinig what you've learned to anyone that might listen. Including GWB. Don't bother sharing this with Gore voters. They enjoy being fed a diet of sewage,Anyone that reads this and comes away sanguine about the rathole of waste and excess in Washington deserves their serfdom. On another front, do click over to "Transfer" by Jerry Furland. Another honest author toiling in the vineyards for all of us.