Peril and Promise

NBC News journalist Chancellor wrote this book in "anger and frustration" over the United States' continuing inability to manage its affairs. The country has gone to hell since Kennedy's assassination, he says, with the American people let down by one ineffective President and Congress after the other. He sees the United States losing its competitive edge in technology to Japan and West Germany, bankrupting itself with deficits, letting its infrastructure rot, and abusing its human resources by miseducating its youth and not retraining its work force. Instead of a kinder, gentler America, he wants a "tougher, smarter America," with more imaginative leadership, courageous economic management (including new taxes), and a national effort, similar to that for the moon program, to put the country right again. A refreshingly honest and thoughtful book. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Jeffrey R. Herold, Bucyrus P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

NBC news commentator Chancellor holds both Reagan and Congress responsible for tripling the national debt and for failing to address adequately a host of urgent problems such as housing, pollution and poverty. In this short, opinionated, well-argued commentary he proposes a mixed bag of controversial reforms: a national technology policy to overcome U.S. corporations' myopic obsession with short-term profits; increased taxes; a tax on Social Security benefits for those who don't need entitlements. He suggests keeping primary and secondary schools open all year and establishing a national youth service corps. He would reduce or eliminate the payments that political action committees give to members of Congress, abolish Presidential primaries and make national conventions more democratic. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.