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 enlarge | Authors: Scott Bittle, Jean Johnson
Publisher: Collins Business
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $7.82
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 6704
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0061241873
Dewey Decimal Number: 336.73
EAN: 9780061241871
ASIN: 0061241873
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Excellent condition!
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| Customer Reviews:
What Is the Money Going For? April 17, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis by Scott Brittle and Jean Johnson reminds readers how much of our tax dollars are returned to us in the form of Social Security and Medicare. And, every year there is more health care to buy. Brittle and Johnson also offer suggestions and recommendations for the future but the main objective is to convince citizens that the crisis has been slow in coming and will take a lot of unavoidable sacrafices. The primary focus is on America's health care expenditures while the money spent on military defense is not an option that is as thoroughly examined.
 Where Does the Money Go? April 11, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis
This is a very readable review of the federal budget, the problems of deficit spending and the national debt. Most important, it explains the reasons for doing something now and possible solutions to address the problem. TRhis should be mandatory reading before the November elections.
 A Very Limited Tour April 9, 2008
16 out of 24 found this review helpful
Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis by Scott Bittle and Joan Johnson.
The authors state that their book is "a straightforward explanation of what politicians, economists, think tanks, and lobbyists are arguing about when they fight about the federal budget". A more accurate description would be: their book presents the arguments of those politicians, economists, think tanks, and lobbyists who focus (almost exclusively) on the budget problems associated with Social Security, Medicare, and the baby-boom generation.
The book contains a pie-chart showing federal spending for 2006. The chart shows the following categories and the percentage of spending associated with each: Medicare (12.4%), Social Security (20.7%), Total non-defense discretionary (31.9%), Interest on the debt (8.5%), Defense (19.7%) and Medicaid (6.8%). Based on this information, one would expect that Social Security, Medicare, and Defense would receive nearly equal treatment in a book about the federal budget.
I performed a rough count of the number of occurrences of specific terms and obtained the following results: Social Security (206 occurrences), Medicare (180), boomers/baby-boom (28), Defense (6), Pentagon (4), and missile defense (1).
Jaunty in tone; but serious in purpose April 8, 2008
This book is designed to initiate the average reader who lives outside the beltway into some of the most important dimensions of the federal budget crisis --both as to today as well as looking into the future. The authors are quite skillful in using charts and illustrations, and a sometimes humorous approach, to discuss these concepts. And it is a sobering topic to be sure, since it involves Medicare, Social Security, the national debt, deficits, and other cheery topics. One only need read the second chapter ("So what's the worse that come happen?") to get scared out of their socks. That is, are we in year X (which is not too far away) going to be in a situation where the entire federal budgetary income can only be spent on Medicare, Social Security, a bit for national defense, and the rest to cover interest payments on the national debt? The authors take the reader step by step through what are the problems, how they developed into a serious crisis, some often mentioned but not realistic proposed solutions, and the defects of the political system which have contributed to the situation. For even those of us who live within the beltway, there is much to be learned from the book. For example, I was not aware that fully 34.8% of the federal budget income is derived from payments into Social Security, Medicare and other federal insurance programs. Unlike regular income from taxes, at some point in the future this increment will have to be paid back when those systems need the money. Multiply this figure times a decade or two and you begin to see the problem. About as palatable an introduction to this topic as one is likely to encounter.
Everyone of voting age should read this book. April 8, 2008
I heard the authors interviewed on my local PBS station and decided to read the book. This book is for someone (everyone) who is not looking for a lot of statistics, just the simple reality of the growing national debt. I think that the authors present the plain and simple truth on the rising cost of Social Security and Medicare and the unplesant outcomes if left unchecked. Many individuals have found themselves in a devastating credit crunch for buying real estate that they could not afford. How long can the U.S Government continue to spend money on the aging baby boomers before it finds itself in a credit crunch?
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