The Price of Politics.

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.

THE PRICE OF POLITICS

BY BOB WOODWARD

SIMON AND SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

2012, 380 PAGES, $30

An associate editor at The Washington Post, Bob Woodward has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for reporting on Watergate and the 9/11 attacks--and has authored or coauthored 12 nonfiction No. 1 bestsellers. The Price of Politics, which covers 3 1/2 years of the Obama Administration, analyzing the struggle between Pres. Barack Obama and Congress as they try to manage Federal spending and tax policy. More than half of the book examines the 44-day crisis in June-July 2011, when the nation came to the brink of "a potentially catastrophic default of its debt."

The story actually begins on Jan. 5, 2009, two weeks before Obama's inauguration. The president-elect called a meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate to explore the possibility of working together to address the looming economic crises. He wanted Congress to pass an economic stimulus package in the range of "$800 billion to $1.3 trillion as soon as possible" The meeting ended with an "atmosphere for bipartisan cooperation ... on all sides." The stimulus bill of new spending and additional tax cuts ($787,000,000,000) cleared the House and Senate on Feb. 13, 2009; however, all 177 House Republicans voted against it. On March 11, 2009, Obama signed the bill, but he seemed bewildered that not one Republican had voted for the bill.

The vote on the stimulus bill, which had 8,570 earmarks and added up to $47,700,000,000 in pork and pet projects, was an early indication that the "inside game of government was very different from the outside game of campaigning." Republicans realized Obama "refused to listen to what [they] were saying." Obama and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate "would go it alone." Not only had Obama "missed an opportunity to get the Republicans to help him," he had "actually pushed them away. "There had been "no sincere contact, no inclusiveness, no real listening." When Obama wondered why it had happened, Chief of Staff Rohm Emanuel assured him, "We have the votes--[expletive deleted] 'em."

Woodward researched all important meetings and many discussions concerning the fiscal situation; he relates not only what was said in the meetings, but explains what it all meant. The first attempt to bring Republicans and Democrats together resulted from the "Project" of Sen. Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.). As chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Conrad could prove the...