David Stockman's Second Act

Reagan's budget guy is charged with fraud. Didn't he practice his fiscal finagling on the master?

Keith Bedford / Reuters

David Stockman, former budget director for former U.S. President Ronald Regan, speaks to members of the media as he leaves his arraignment at Manhattan Federal Court.

If the [Securities and Exchange Commission] had jurisdiction over the White House, we might have all had time for a course in remedial economics at Allenwood Penitentiary.

THAT CHOICE QUOTE IS FROM The Triumph of Politics , David Stockman's 1986 memoir of life in the Reagan Administration. As Ronald Reagan's first Budget Director, Stockman helped produce the huge deficits that followed Reagan's election on the promise of a balanced budget. Then Stockman ratted out his colleagues in a magazine interview and in his book (it seems they had made no serious attempt to cut spending) and moved to Wall...

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