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Rebooting the American Dream
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Rebooting the American Dream

11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country

Thom Hartmann
Berrett-Koehler, 2010
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Innovative

Recommendation

Controversial and politically progressive radio host Thom Hartmann has nothing nice to say about Ronald Reagan. Hartmann believes Reagan sponsored a catastrophic conservative restructuring of US governmental norms. According to Hartmann, Reagan and his cronies handed the nation’s wealth to their friends via free-trade laws, nonenforcement of antitrust rules, union busting and runaway deficit spending that benefited the military-industrial complex. This sometimes-repetitive tome is sharply, refreshingly at odds with conventional wisdom, though if you admire Reagan you may want to read another book instead. getAbstract suggests these essays to legal thinkers, politicians, academics, health care advocates and progressive entrepreneurs.

Summary

The Ghost of Alexander Hamilton

The United States was once without a substantial industrial base. At its founding, the US exported all its raw materials and bought them back in manufactured form from abroad. Right after the Revolutionary War, George Washington asked treasury chief Alexander Hamilton to rebuild the new nation’s economy. Hamilton’s 11-step plan, introduced in 1791, laid out a protectionist system of tariffs and domestic business stimulus that were central to creating the industrial powerhouse the US became. Ronald Reagan dismantled the economy by promoting free-trade policies that ruined its manufacturing base and gutted its middle class. Now is the time to reverse the legacy of Reaganomics and rebuild the US with another 11-point plan:

1. No More Free Trade

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill, saved close to three million jobs and kept the economy out of deeper recession. Because of the US’s diminished industrial base, however, the stimulus created millions of new jobs in China. The nation must restore its manufacturing plants and institute protectionism to retain the jobs...

About the Author

Radio talk show host Thom Hartman also wrote Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class – and What We Can Do About It.

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