Balancing the federal budget

the long version

"Irene Rubin focuses her attention on how government tried and eventually succeeded in balancing the U.S. federal budget in 1998. With characteristic insight and a lively narrative, Rubin describes the successive efforts of Congress and the administration over seventeen years to shape a process that would encourage balance. The story of the damage done to agencies as they dealt with reductions and how long it took to recover is told here for the first time. Pertinent today as then, the story that Rubin tells foreshadows political events to come as the Bush administration keeps a tight lid on agency spending in an uncertain economic climate."--BOOK JACKET.