Deficit Delusion - by John Tamny (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

There's a growing consensus about the causes of budget deficits and the national debt. And that's the problem.

At present, members of the Left claim that higher rates of taxation levied on the rich are the fix, members of the Right call for a combination of spending cuts, tax increases and entitlement reform, while supply siders confidently assert that the path out of debt is tax cuts that will shower the Treasury with higher tax revenues borne of soaring economic growth. The solutions flamboyantly mistake the problem.

In his latest and arguably most pathbreaking book, Parkview Institute president John Tamny asks readers to contemplate government debt in an all-new way, and in doing so makes a powerful case that deficits and the national debt will continue to grow precisely because left, right and supply side profoundly misunderstand why there's debt in the first place.

While the warring ideologies promote what they imagine are different solutions to the perceived debt problem, it's lost on them that they're basically saying the same thing: an insufficiency of federal tax revenue has resulted in deficits and debt that seemingly soar without endpoint. Tamny makes a case that the arguments fail repeatedly precisely because they're backwards.

Drawing on examples from private individuals and businesses, Tamny turns the debt discussion on its head. Far from a signal of insufficient revenue, Tamny shows that government debt is a logical and perilous effect of market optimism about rising tax revenues now, and much more dangerous, the expectation of exponentially more tax revenue in the future.

Readers of The Deficit Delusion will gradually see the folly of a deficit and debt discussion that has grown stale and terribly confused, all the while looking at the Reagan tax cuts, skyrocketing government debt in California, entitlement reform, and the soaring national debt through an entirely different lens. Far from an apology for all the government debt, Tamny makes a passionate case that the debt crisis is not what the alarmists of the competing ideologies imagine it to be, but is instead one of soaring tax revenue itself that, if unchecked, will render the national debt of the moment rather pedestrian in comparison to what's ahead.

For far too long readers have been inundated with the same arguments and same solutions dressed up differently to feed the differing views of the competing ideologies. With The Deficit Delusion, readers finally have a book that will prove the mask-off moment for left, right and supply side.

Review Quotes

"In The Deficit Delusion, John Tamny offers a cornucopia of contrarian insights that you cannot afford to miss if you want to understand our fabulously rich, hopelessly indebted economy." --George Gilder, Author of Life After Capitalism

"Few people have demonstrated the ability to identify when consensus--the crowd--gets a fundamental principle wrong better than John Tamny. The Deficit Delusion should be mandatory reading before anyone goes on TV to discuss the deficits." --Barry Ritholtz, Chairman, Ritholtz Wealth Management, author of How Not to Invest.

"In his new book the always provocative John Tamny makes a compelling case for calm and reason about the national debt 'crisis.' The Deficit Delusion offers a compelling counternarrative that effectively challenges the wisdom of the alarmists. It is essential reading for those seeking a contrarian view." --Steve Buri, President, Discovery Institute

About the Author

John Tamny is president of the Parkview Institute, editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior fellow at the Market Institute, and senior economic adviser to mutual fund firm Applied Finance Group. He frequently writes about the securities markets, along with tax, trade, and monetary policy issues that impact those markets for a variety of publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and RealClearMarkets. Tamny is the author of six books. His latest is The Money Confusion (All Seasons Press). Others are When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason (Post Hill Press), which was released in 2021, Popular Economics (Regnery, 2015), a primer on economics, Who Needs the Fed? (Encounter Books, 2016) about the central bank's onrushing economic irrelevance, The End of Work (Regnery, 2018), which discusses the exciting evolution of jobs that don't feel at all like work, along with 2019's They're Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America's Frustrated Independent Thinkers (AIER).