Book Review highlights of FREE LUNCH. Powerful interview with Ian Punnett carried by Coast to Coast last night.
Order book here; freelunchthebook.com
Review from seattletimes.nwsource.com:
"Free Lunch," by David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, documents "how the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill)."
That's why Oklahoma City residents recently experienced a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the superrich owners of the Seattle SuperSonics. A ballot measure that passed March 4 will raise $121 million in sales taxes to "fancy up" a practically new building in town with luxury skyboxes, rooftop gardens and more, in an attempt to lure the Sonics to Oklahoma City.
This scheme to enrich one Oklahoma City billionaire and several millionaires will gouge the poor by forcing them to pay more for groceries, utilities and other necessities. Cost to each average Oklahoma City resident will be about $150. (Read more)
Review from oregonlive.com:
David Cay Johnston is an indefatigable reporter for The New York Times whose work recalls the muckraking epics of the Progressive era. Like Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair, Johnston is willing to take on the rich and powerful, with an implicit plea for reform.
His articles exposing systematic abuses enshrined in the federal tax system, which enrich the wealthy at the expense of "the vast majority," won a Pulitzer Prize and were the basis for his previous book, "Perfectly Legal." But unlike the vivid and influential reporting of his renowned predecessors, which led to cleaner water, safer food and trust-busting, Johnston's work hasn't made a dent. Given the discouraging moral state of the U.S. economy, Johnston's new book may only embolden the scofflaws. (Read more)
Review from cwa-union.org:
...Called "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)," the book examines how everyone from golf course developers and sports team owners to Paris Hilton and George W. Bush have benefited from government subsidies.
"Do we really want to tax ourselves so that rich men can spend less flying in luxury to play golf?" Johnston asks, explaining that while America's poor and sick worry and suffer, the rich know how to work the system. (Read more)
Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston
Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston Speaks on the Free Lunch Given to America's ...BuzzFlash, USA
- May 09, 2008
- May 09, 2008
On Sunday, March 9, 2008, BuzzFlash sponsored an afternoon talk with David Cay Johnston, who discussed his latest book: “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest ...
clipped from Google - 5/2008
The value of our public librariesSocialist Worker Online, USA
- May 09, 2008
- May 09, 2008
In his book Free Lunch, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston documents another place our tax dollars are ending up: in the pockets of the ...
clipped from Google - 5/2008
Author of tax books to speak in BrightonRochester Democrat and Chronicle, USA
- May 08, 2008
- May 08, 2008
David Cay Johnston, author of two bestsellers on inequities in the US tax system, will speak at the annual meeting of the Labor and Employment Relations ...
clipped from Google - 5/2008
What are you reading?Lawrence Journal World, USA
- Apr 13, 2008
- Apr 13, 2008
“‘Free Lunch,’ by David Cay Johnston. It’s about how state and local governments provide too many tax benefits to the wealthy.” “‘The Audacity of Hope,’ by ...
clipped from Google - 5/2008
powered by
Review from dallasnews.com:
Where has the money gone? David Cay Johnston provides some answers in his angry and brilliant book, Free Lunch. An ace investigative reporter, Mr. Johnston explains: "From those leaves in the park to textbooks to highway bridge maintenance to food safety inspections, money is dwindling because so much has been diverted to the already rich through giveaways, tax breaks and a host of subsidies that range from the explicit to the deeply hidden."
These diversions started in the Reagan years, according to Mr. Johnston, and Democrats have played their part. But the massive transfer of national wealth to the tippy-top became religion in the Bush administration. (Read more)
Review from newsreview.com:
All of us should read David Cay Johnston's new book before we vote. Not nearly enough of us will. Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else, Johnston's last book, based on his tax reporting for The New York Times, explained how the U.S. tax system is skewed in favor of the wealthy at the expense of the wage-earner. Now, Free Lunch, full of clear narrative, plain language and plenty of sources, addresses the use of subsidies, tax abatements and incentives to transfer money from the taxpayers to private individuals and businesses.
For example, any accident on privately maintained rails that injures or kills an Amtrak rider, even if it's the result of negligence on the part of the railroad company, is paid for by taxpayers. Johnston details how the rail companies responsible for maintaining the rail system insulated themselves from the responsibility for their own cost-cutting and negligence. (Read more)
Review from businessweek.com:
Most people will remember that President George W. Bush once was a part-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. Some might even recall that Bush and his partners sold the team in 1998 for a $164 million profit. But New York Times investigative reporter David Cay Johnston makes an argument that few will have heard before. Bush and his team team, argues Johnston, made their profits not by building their business but by extracting taxes from fellow Texans. In his new book, Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill), Johnston deconstructs the Rangers episode as an example of what he sees as a pervasive trend: the tendency of the nation's monied elite to bend the rules of capitalism for their own benefit. In the case of the Rangers, Johnston details each of the subsidies the baseball team won from the state, including an interest-free rent-to-own stadium deal financed in part by a state sales tax hike. Johnston says taxpayer subsidies paid to Bush's ownership group totaled $202.5 million--$38.5 million more than their profit when they sold the team. Subsidies like the Rangers deal, Johnston writes, are "just a government sponsored transfer of wealth from the many to the few."
Johnston sounds that theme again and again, a populist kick in the gut that uses the tools of the investigative reporter's trade: disgruntled sources, deep document dives, and the author's aggressive skepticism. If there's a fault in the work, it's the author's occasionally shrill tone, which may turn off rather than persuade some readers. (Read more)
From Bob Herbert's column nytimes.com:
...My colleague at The Times, David Cay Johnston, took a look at income patterns in the U.S. over the past few decades in his new book, "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)."
From 1980 to 2005 the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.) But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during that period. The standard of living for the average family has improved not because incomes have grown, but because women have gone into the workplace in droves.
The peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973--when the average income per taxpayer (adjusted for inflation) was $33,001. That is nearly $4,000 higher than the average in 2005.
It's incredible but true: 90 percent of the population missed out on the income gains during that long period.
Mr. Johnston does not mince words: "The pattern here is clear. The rich are getting fabulously richer, the vast majority are somewhat worse off, and the bottom half--for all practical purposes, the poor--are being savaged by our current economic policies." (Read more)
Review from galvestondailynews.com:
During the past three decades, the super rich in the United States have increasingly used the government to make themselves richer at the expense of everybody else, a new book says.
And electricity deregulation in Texas is a prime example of that phenomenon, New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston argues in the book, being released today.
"Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)" is Johnston's latest look at how the wealthy get the government to implement policies to benefit them.
In 2003, he wrote "Perfectly Legal: the Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else." In 2001, Johnston won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of inequities in the tax system for The Times. (Read more) |
