BOOK CORNER July Book of the Month
Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill) by Dan Cay Johnston;
Portfolio, New York, NY, 2007.
Reviewed by Nick Baumann for Mother Jones Magazine 
For its first 280 pages, the new exposé from this Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter is an engaging look at how the superrich consistently—and outrageously—rely on public handouts while preaching about free markets and wasteful entitlement programs all the way to the bank. The villains in David Cay Johnston's tales run the gamut from railroad executives to sports-franchise owners to hedge-fund managers, all joined by a willingness to take enormous sums from public coffers while providing little or nothing in return.
Take former Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose CSX railroad saved billions by skimping on maintenance; when there was a fatal crash, taxpayers footed the bill. Before entering politics, George W. Bush ran a money-losing baseball team, but ended up millions of dollars richer by getting a government-funded sweetheart deal on a new stadium. Retail chains like Wal-Mart win property-tax breaks and then squeeze out local businesses that pay their fair share. The free ride has become business as usual, but Johnston sees it for what it really is: cheating.
Free Lunch fizzles in its final chapter, where Johnston lays out some unconvincing solutions. He proposes "politician finance reform"—giving members of Congress all the money they want for dining, travel, and entertainment so they can't be tempted by their wealthy friends. Yet the end of Abramoff-style golf junkets and free box seats would do little to curb the influence of major campaign donors. Johnston's final appeal to handout-hungry CEOs to "ask themselves how much they are willing to sully their reputations" feels naive, too. It will take more than a call for self-restraint to derail this gravy train.
For more reviews, click here.
View previous Class Action Book of the Month selections...
June Book of the Month: Without a Net: The Female Expereince of Growing Up Working Class
May Book of the Month: Women Without Class: Girls, Race and Identity
April Book of the Month: Trembling in Bones
March Book of the Month:The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality
February Book of the Month: Class and Parenting
January Movie of the Month: The Story of Stuff
December Book of the Month: Graceful Simplicity: Towards a Philosophy & Politics of Simple Living
November Book of the Month: All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
October Movie of the Month:The Milagro Beanfield War
September Book of the Month: Tearing Down the Gates
August Book of The Month: Staff Picks
July Book of the Month: Theory of the Leisure Class
June Book of the Month: Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons
May Book of the Month: Death in the Haymarket
April Book of the Month: Food Politics
March Book of the Month: Psychology and Economic Injustice
February Book of the Month : What's My Name, Fool?
December Book of the Month:
Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming
November Book of the Month: Awol
October Book of the Month: Class Passing
September Book and Video of the Month: Beyond Silenced Voices and Declining By Degrees
August Books of the Month: Human Cargo and Gathering the Sun
July Book of the Month: The Overworked American by Juliet Schor
June Book of the Month: More Money Than God by Steven R. Leder
May Book of the Month: Global Class by Jeff Faux
April Books of the Month: Classified and Strapped
March Book of the Month: Welfare Brat, A Memoir by Mary Childers
February Book of the Month: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
January Book of the Month: Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender by Paula Rothenberg
View last year's Book of the Month selections...
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