| The Deficit and the Public Interest |
| List of Acronyms and Abbreviations |
| Preface The Era of the Budget |
| Acknowledgments |
 | One Madisonian Budgeting, or Why the Process is so Complicated |
| Two Democrats in a Budget Trap |
 | Three "The Worst of All Worlds" |
| • | Defense Spending |
| • | The House Divided |
| • | The Senate United Means the Congress Divided |
| • | A Procedural Revolution |
| • | More Economic Pressures |
| • | From Bad to Worse |
| • | The Election, the Economy, and a Fragmented Budget |
| • | Lame Ducks |
| • | There They Go Again |
| Four Preparing for the Reagan Revolution |
| Five The President's Program |
| Six Gramm-Latta 1 |
| Seven Party Responsibility Comes to Congress |
| Eight Starving the Public Sector: The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 |
| Nine Return of the Deficit |
| Ten A Government Divided |
| Eleven Fake Budgets and a Real Tax Hike |
| Twelve Economics as Moral Theory: Volckernomics, Reaganomics, and the Balanced Budget Amendment |
| Thirteen Guerrilla Warfare: Spending Politics, 1982 |
| Fourteen A Triumph of Governance: Social Security |
| Fifteen Causes and Consequences of the Deficit |
| Sixteen The Budget Process Collapses |
| Seventeen Budgeting Without Rules |
| Eighteen The Deficit in Public and Elite Opinion |
| Nineteen Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, or the Institutionalization of Stalemate |
| Twenty Counterpoint: The Improbable Triumph of Tax Reform |
| Twenty-One Budgeting with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, or "Help Me Make It Through the Night" |
| Twenty-Two The Deficit and the Public Interest |
| Twenty-Three Nobody's Darling, but No One's Disaster Either: A Moderate Proposal on the Deficit |
| Postscript: The Budget Truce of 1990 |
| Notes |
| Index |