Y’all can (and should!) listen to Amity Shlaes talk about Coolidge the Budget Hawk in a recent (April 18) Cato Institute Podcast
It’s a pleasure to listen to her, she speaks with such clarity. Among other points, she states as the central take away message re Coolidge and the budget that he actually left office with the federal budget lower than it was when he came in – no small feat, and, I would wager, one that hasn’t been repeated by any of his successors.
Just a quick note to alert y’all to the limited-time-only offer of a free e-book or pdf download of the complete Gene Healy book, “The Cult of the Presidency” at the Cato Institute website (a $ 15.95 value).
This is a fantastic book that details the shocking development and growth of executive power far beyond its original constitutional limits. In my own view (can’t yet say if Gene Healy bears me out), Calvin Coolidge was the last president to be aware of and feel constrained by those constitutional limits. And I’ll use this opportunity to also hype Gene’s own blog, where he offers “punditry by the pound” 🙂 (but doesn’t update frequently…the last entry is from Oct. 2009)
