400 Reviews

puted and compiled. However, this was not contained in the review material and will not be discussed here.

Details for gaining access to the data and for using a program to convert the data to spreadsheet for- mats are provided in the Technical Documentation. Procedures are outlined with step-by-step instructions. Information is also specified on system requirements and other operating essentials.

The data are stored in a compressed format on each diskette, and a Translation Program must be used to convert the data for analysis. The Translation Program is included on each diskette to be used with each series. The Technical Documentation explains the use of the Translation Program. Experienced users can run the program using the Command Mode while a Menu Mode is also available for beginners. This feature contains various escapes, help screens, and look-up or scroll capabilities. Using the Technical Pro- gram will permit the user to view the series tables in a page-by-page format or to scan the file as a spreadsheet.

Overall, this is a very nice product. Both the Content and Technical Documentation are concise and clearly written. Specific information can be quickly located in the documentation through a detailed table of contents. The documentation provides the name and address to be used for assistance and questions. This is very important to a data user. However, neither the documentation, nor the diskettes contain bib- liographic catalog citations, and this would be useful.

The Translation Program is easy to use and is explained in the Technical Documentation in simple, direct terms. Each explanation is followed by an example. For this review, the data and conversion pro- gram were tested using the 5 l/4” format on an IBM PC/AT. The Menu Mode was used for all tests. The run times were very fast and the data were successfully converted to several possible formats. Within each series, the user can run the Translation Program on only one country at a time. It would be nice to be able to run several countries at once, and to be able to specify a particular set of concepts or tables. Testing was carried out by an unscientific sample of librarians and Economics Department graduate stu- dents, all of whom have used OECD data from magnetic tape and print formats. Each tester felt that the Economic Outlook diskettes would be a useful addition to a library or data archive. This file would be especially valuable for those users lacking access to mainframe computing facilities and for those who want to use the printed data in a non-print, spreadsheet form for analysis.

ELIZABETH STEPHENSON Institute for Social Science Research

University of California, Los Angeles 405 Hilgard Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90024-1484 USA

Making America’s Budget Policy: From the 1980s to the 1900s. By Joseph 3. Minarik. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1990. 229 p. ISBN O-87332-573-7. $39.95. ISBN 0-87332-621-O (paper). $15.95.

As America entered the 199Os, it did so fighting “a two-front war to improve the nation’s method of collecting revenues and its overall fiscal posture” (p. 4). So begins the thesis developed by Joseph Mi- narik. In this study, Minarik attempts to discover and analyze when, how, and why the 1980s tax reforms developed as they did, what have been their successes and failures, whether there is linkage between a restructuring of the tax system and the burgeoning federal budget deficit, and where we can expect taxes and the deficit to take us in the coming decade. As one intricately involved in the enterprise of tax re- form-Minarik is currently executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress-the author is uniquely qualified to explain the conjunction of these events and their future consequences. From Sena- tor Bill Bradley’s (D-NJ) foreword, it is clear that Minarik was a significant player in the 1986 Tax Re- form Act.

What makes this book a unique and a potentially fruitful volume with which to work is the perspective it brings to the tax and deficit issues. Bradley in the foreword and Minarik in the main text make clear that American budget policy was, and is, a complex interaction between economic, cultural, and political variables. With the book’s organization, we are reminded of the truism that politics is all about distribut- ing power, resources, goods, and services. By identifying these variables, Minarik is able to cast his story and analysis into an identifiable framework. The goals of reforming the tax system and easing the federal budget deficit are met by juggling and then choosing among options and choices.

Reviews 401

One of the major strengths of this book is Minarik’s identification of budget policy as an assemblage of political pressures, which, in turn, reflect myriad multifarious factors. Hence, we witness through Min- arik’s account the very essence of political decisionmaking and strategy formulation as tax reform and budget deficits are attempted.

While every attempt is made to fashion the book as one approachable by the interested fiscal novice, this is not light reading. Minarik sets forth a sophisticated view of politics and economics. This book’s historical, political, and case-study analyses deservedly will represent key views on and an understanding of American fiscal policy. Beyond the academics, bureaucrats, and budget specialists attracted to this type of inquiry, the volume has limited utility to more general audiences.

The 1980s were largely a decade of dissatisfaction with government. This was manifest in attempts to reform the tax system. In 1981, President Reagan marshalled through Congress the cornerstone of his presidential agenda: historic tax cuts. According to Minarik, “The effect was twofold. First the income tax, the object of such dissatisfaction, was made less burdensome; and second, the federal budget deficit was increased substantially” (p. 4). Thus, the initial attempt at reform in the 1980s was mixed. While reform was real, satisfaction with the tax system did not increase, and, more important, issues such as economic fairness, stable growth, and global competitiveness were not helped by these policy changes. With the burgeoning deficit, the need for additional reform is complete.

Minarik divides the book into several sections. Much of these analyses are compilations of work pro- duced in the process of working on tax reform or in testimony before congressional committee. The first is an overview of tax and fiscal policy. Subsequent sections are divided to focus on policy environment, economic and fiscal issues, tax reform, and the future implications of the changes brought to bear in the 1980s. The main part of the book is an exhaustive historically and politically derived survey of American economic policy, the consequences of history and politics are borne out in the 198Os, and the options facing the United States into the 1990s.

The book’s organization bears some attention. Minarik does not dwell on chronological divisions of policy or reform. Instead, his focus is on issue saliency and policy options as they pertain to contempo- rary fiscal policy. For example, in acknowledging the deficit, Minarik examines various options to in- crease budget revenues. Arguing that “additional revenues of $50 billion to $100 billion per year by 1988 seem essential to hold the deficit to manageable proportions” (p. 53), Minarik identifies options that could be used to close the gap: increasing tax rates, repealing indexation of the tax rates, eliminating selected individual tax preferences, eliminating business tax preferences, and taxing consumption. Each of these options are analyzed for their advantages and disadvantages; Minarik ultimately suggests that small, incre- mental increases in many of these areas might be forthcoming (and which, indeed, did appear in the budget agreement for fiscal year 1991), while pushing for what would be, “better still . . . a complete restructuring of the income tax law, reducing distortions, and perhaps even reducing marginal tax rates”

(P. 55). Other sections of the book include the development of tax reform from the early 1980s and the Bradley-

Gephardt Fair Tax Act of 1983, which become the impetus for reform in 1986. Additionally, Minarik analyzes the political arena in which reform was achieved and the issues that emerged from it.

By the concluding chapter of the book, the reader, like Minarik, is unsure what to think. We learn from Minarik in his analysis that the political process, complex as it might be, is a known entity; the issues facing the Congress in balancing economic growth and increased revenue are on the table and the options seem clear. Yet the magnitude of the problem is daunting. For example, by 1988, interest being paid on the federal deficit was approaching one-quarter of the annual budget. Minarik argues that five- year projections made by the Congressional Budget Office and other assumptions about decreasing the deficit are just that - projections. The threat of higher interest rates, credit demands, global competitive- ness, and capital flight remain real in a sphere of economic instability. Minarik suggests that policymakers select targets to “prevent the ratio of national debt to GNP from rising; any path that fails this basic test leads to disaster” (p. 213). In examining specific areas of the budget, Minarik targets an increase in the tax on Social Security benefits, elimination of some entitlement programs, and systemic changes in Medi- care as examples of cost reduction. However, these savings are minimal, and Minarik suggests that, as occurred in the fall of 1990, it is inevitable that tax reform will be revisited as the primary mechanism to provide substantial increases in revenue while continuing to provide some notion of fairness and stability for economic growth.

The most significant lessons of this book are political rather than economic. As Minarik concludes, “If eliminating the federal deficit were easy, it would have been done long ago. Pointing out the dangers of our current course can only steel the will; as the review of the issues richly demonstrates, the difficulty

402 Reviews

remains” (p. 219). This volume presents an instructional guide in the complex demands upon government for services.

SCOTT HILL Institute of Governmental Affairs

University of California Davis, CA 95616

USA

Guide to Official Publications of Foreign Countries. Editor-in-chief, Gloria Westfall, Bethesda, MD: Congressional Information Service and the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Ass~iation, 1990. xxi, 359 p. $179.00 ($229.~ after July 31, 1991).

Early in 1987, the International Documents Task Force of ALA, GODORT, decided to begin to com- pile a world guide to foreign government official publications in the form of an annotated bibliography. This guide is the result of an enormous effort on the part of numerous librarians and area specialists, to bring together their expertise into a useful reference tool for nonspecialists. The editors wished to create “a ready reference and acquisition tool, designed primarily to acquaint readers with the official publica- tions of countries with which they are unfamiliar” (p. xiii). SecondariIy, the authors wanted to “make this info~ation accessible to English-slang readers by p~v~~ng unofficial English ~anslations for all titles and agency names not in English” (p. xiii). Because most countries do not provide guides to their official publications, identifying foreign publications has been a laborious and time-consuming task. Fur- thermore, many countries have no centralized method of distributing their government’s publications, mak- ing the job of a foreign publications librarian almost impossible, if she/he hopes to provide access to government publications from countries throughout the world. This guide solves many of these problems by providing the necessary information to identify, evaluate, and acquire foreign publications from 157 coun~es .

Entries are arranged by country and then by subject category under country. Each entry provides title, date of publication, place of publication, the name of the government agency responsible for its creation, frequency of issuance, language(s), availability information, microform availability, variations in title and agency name, earlier titles, and a brief annotation describing contents and format of the publication and designation of the piece upon which the contributor has based his/her entry. Entries under each country are divided into I7 subject categories: Guides to Official Publications, Biblio~ap~es and Catalogs, Sources of General Info~ation on the Country, Gove~ent Directories and ~g~tion Manuals, Statistical Yearbooks, Laws and Regulations, Legislative Proceedings, Statements of Government Policy, Economic Affairs, Central Bank Publications, Development Plans, Budget, Census, Health, Labor, Education, and Court Reports.

For the purpose of this guide official publications were defined as “all materials published by govem- ments in any format whatsoever, not intended solely for internal distribution” (p. xiii). The editors further limited the Guide to include only “principal” publications, selecting out titles that covered specialized aspects within the Guide’s subject categories. Works of intergovemmental organizations were omitted be- cause of sheer volume and their present level of accessibility through existing indexes, but in cases where a government has not produced a title in a certain subject category, a nonofficial publication or an official publication of another country is noted. For example, the Guide often mentions the U.S. government’s Area Handbook Series under “Sources of General Information on the Country” when no other sources are available. The editors also limited their geographic coverage by excluding dependent territories and sovereign nations with a ~pulation of less than lOO,ooO.

The greatest dif~~ul~ the editors encountered in creating this guide, was that of locating current edi- tions of titles for inclusion in the work. Their goal was to include editions published in the 198Os, but in some cases this was simply not possible, “in spite of the great amount of time and energy they expended trying to obtain recent materials for examination” (p. xv). Certain works published before 1980 were intentionally included for their historical value, though the main emphasis of the Guide is on current mate- rials.

One’s initial response to a guide such as this is liiely to be ove~hel~ngly positive. Government publications librarians have needed a guide like this for a iong time. This volume serves to share foreign area studies expertise among all librarians, who obviously cannot be experts in every area of the world. Many government publications specialists may not have fully developed foreign publications collections simply because of the lack of the kind of information this volume provides. In this sense, the usefulness of a volume such as this will not be limited to librarians. Researchers in business, government, tourism, journalism, economics, demography, health, labor, education, and so many other fields will find this re-