Review of In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington, by Robert E. Rubin and Jacob Weisberg.

The latest budget deficit numbers from the Congressional Budget Office have set off a flurry of self-righteous condemnation and doomsaying.

Rubinomics held that the economy boomed in 1993because tax increases turned the deficit into a surplus. However, it's always the private sector that is responsible for prosperity.

In light of the nation's experience with Reaganomics, it is hard to resist the conclusion that what we are hearing is not economics or even Rubinomics, but partisan politics.

Whichever party is in opposition claims the fiscal-hawk mantle. The party in power pays lip service to fiscal responsibility, but ignores it in practice.

U.S. presidential challenger John Kerry is a classic Democrat, and that's the problem as his image forms.

The argument that high deficits cause high interest rates, and these rates weaken the economy or slow the economic recovery, isshown by actual experience to be false.

George W. Bush confronts his own challenge. He will follow in Reagan's footsteps, ignore popular opinion abroad and vocal opposition at home, and move to disarm and liberate Iraq.