Defining defense: The 1985 military budget

Recent Book in Macroeconomics* Assessing Tax Reform. Henry J. Aaron and Harvey Galper. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1985. 145 pp. $22.95 ISBN 0-8157-0038-S ($8.95 ISBN O-8157-0037-7 paperbound). Reform of the U.S. tax system has become a central political issue. This book offers a concise, nontechnical discussion of the tax reform issues now facing Congress. The authors outline the major alternative proposals and analyze principles of taxation that can be used for judging them; they explore the issues surrounding a move to the comprehensive income tax, a cash-flow tax, and the valueadded tax, or other consumption-based taxes, and show the conflicts and opportunities resulting from large current government deficits and the move for tax reform. The authors also describe several alternative strategies for increasing revenues quickly. Beyond Monetarism: Finding the Road to Stable Money. Marc A. Miles. New York: Basic Books, 1984. 270 pp. $16.95 ISBN O465-00663-g. In this book, Marc Miles demonstrates that the whole monetarist experiment was doomed to fail from the beginning. He finds that what is needed is an altogether new approach that abandons the obsession with “quantity rules” and concentrates instead on stabilizing the value of money directly through market prices, arguing that such an approach can stabilize money not only for today but also for years to come. Defining Defense: The 1985 Military Budget. Earl C. Ravenal. Washington, D.C.: The Cato Institute, 1984. ($3.95 ISBN O932790-2 paperbound). The defense budget, national security, and American foreign policy have become increasingly contested in today’s political environment. In this booklet, Earl C. Ravenal offers a reassessment of what American security means in an uncontrollable world. He *Please mention the Journal ordering from publishers.

of Macroeconomics,

Fall

1985,

Vol.

7, No.

4, when

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