Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson are editors of Public Agenda Online. In this book, they've done a wonderful job of sorting through information, disinformation, and partisan rhetoric to bring the monstrous federal budget into the grasp of average citizens. They do this without glossing over the bad news, over-simplifying solutions, or creating hype about one particular pet issue. This book needed to be written. I hope many people will read it during this election period. It isn’t an attempt to bash government or make a partisan plea for votes. It is well balanced and focused on educating citizens about the realities of our complex budget. No simple solutions or silver bullets exist. Fixing our budget crisis is a critical problem but these authors remain hopeful. Feasible solutions exist even if they are not easy to swallow.

We need to realize that the answer isn’t on the left or the right. The answer is in owning up to our responsibilities and facing reality. The book closes with a plea for each person to exercise a little self-examination. Are you part of the problem?

Five Signs You’re Part of the Problem

• You can name every part to the legal entanglements surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, but you don’t recognize the name of the vice president or the speaker of the house.
  
• You’re getting all your news from comedians
  
• You watch every single game in the NCAA tournament, but you don’t have time to keep up with politics.
  
• You’re focused on your family. Politics doesn’t matter to you.
  
• The news is depressing. You’d rather not know.

"Where Does The Money Go" - Bittle and Johnson

If you're curious about how much of the problem is government waste, tax-payer fraud, lazy people collecting welfare, politician's salaries, tax-cuts, or those nasty "earmarks" we hear so much about, then this book will help quantify each issue. The answer is that correcting any one of those problems won't make a dent in the budget crisis.