Audiobook13 hours
The Price of Politics
Written by Bob Woodward
Narrated by Boyd Gaines
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
See how and why Washington is not functioning.
Bob Woodward’s freshly reported, thirty-five-page Afterword to his national bestseller, The Price of Politics, provides a detailed, often verbatim account of what happened in the dramatic “fiscal cliff” face-off at the end of 2012 between President Obama and the Republicans.
Now it’s happening again. In fall 2013, Washington faces a new round of budget and fiscal wars that could derail the American and global economies.
“We are primarily a blocking majority,” said Michael Sommers, Speaker John Boehner’s chief of staff, summarizing the House Republican position.
It was the land of no-compromise:
On health care cuts over ten years, Boehner suggested to Obama, you are $400 billion, I’m at $600 billion. “Can we split the difference here? Can we land at $500 billion?”
“Four hundred billion is it,” Obama replied. “I just can’t see how we go any further on that.”
After making $120 billion in other concessions, Obama pleaded with Boehner, “What is it about the politics?”
“My guys just aren’t there,” Boehner replied.
“We are $150 billion off, man. I don’t get it. There’s something I don’t get.”
The Price of Politics chronicles the inside story of how President Obama and the U.S. Congress tried, and failed, to restore the American economy and set it on a course to fiscal stability. Woodward pierces the secretive world of Washington policymaking once again, with a close-up story crafted from meeting notes, documents, working papers, and interviews with key players, including President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. Woodward lays bare the broken relationship between President Obama and the Congress.
Bob Woodward’s freshly reported, thirty-five-page Afterword to his national bestseller, The Price of Politics, provides a detailed, often verbatim account of what happened in the dramatic “fiscal cliff” face-off at the end of 2012 between President Obama and the Republicans.
Now it’s happening again. In fall 2013, Washington faces a new round of budget and fiscal wars that could derail the American and global economies.
“We are primarily a blocking majority,” said Michael Sommers, Speaker John Boehner’s chief of staff, summarizing the House Republican position.
It was the land of no-compromise:
On health care cuts over ten years, Boehner suggested to Obama, you are $400 billion, I’m at $600 billion. “Can we split the difference here? Can we land at $500 billion?”
“Four hundred billion is it,” Obama replied. “I just can’t see how we go any further on that.”
After making $120 billion in other concessions, Obama pleaded with Boehner, “What is it about the politics?”
“My guys just aren’t there,” Boehner replied.
“We are $150 billion off, man. I don’t get it. There’s something I don’t get.”
The Price of Politics chronicles the inside story of how President Obama and the U.S. Congress tried, and failed, to restore the American economy and set it on a course to fiscal stability. Woodward pierces the secretive world of Washington policymaking once again, with a close-up story crafted from meeting notes, documents, working papers, and interviews with key players, including President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. Woodward lays bare the broken relationship between President Obama and the Congress.
Author
Bob Woodward
Bob Woodward is an associate editor at The Washington Post, where he has worked for more than 50 years. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his Watergate coverage and the other for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has authored 21 bestselling books, 15 of which have been #1 New York Times bestsellers.
Related to The Price of Politics
Related audiobooks
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5F*ck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Obama: An Oral History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Joe Biden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Power Forward: My Presidential Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Tantrum: The Donald J. Trump Presidential Archives Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On the House: A Washington Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trump Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Living Through What You Hoped Would Never Happen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Electable: Why America Hasn't Put a Woman in the White House . . . Yet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Luckiest Man: Life with John McCain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Taken: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pelosi Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why We're Polarized Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plan of Attack Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Obama's Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Price of Politics
Rating: 3.857142857142857 out of 5 stars
4/5
7 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The book is well written and researched which you would expect from this author. The author does a convincing job of demonstrating the politics and lack of functioning in Washington and nothing like a crisis, the debt ceiling debate, brings out the worst in politics and politicians. The lack of cohesiveness and teamwork in Washington will make many readers sick. I thought the author did a good job at being objective in the writing of the book. I did not feel he leaned one way or the other, politically speaking. He made both sides of the aisle look bad. I expected him to paint the story with a liberal brush. One thumb up.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A typically Woodwardesque account of the 2011 fight over the debt limit and the budget which resulted in the "supercommittee." Reading this just after the fiscal cliff fight and just before the next debt limit fight, I was struck (and depressed) by the "Groundhog Day" scenario that seems to be continuing to play out over and over again in these political battles: we seem to be just getting the same kabuki dance every time, and that's a great disservice to the country.Nobody comes out looking particularly good from this account, although I think it's clear that the president and his team were much more invested in and willing to make a large-scale compromise on tax and budgetary policy than the congressional Republicans, who simply come across as reflexively anti-revenue ideologues, willing to take the country to the brink of economic collapse and balance the budget on the backs of the very poor in order to protect the interests of the extremely wealthy. I wish Woodward had been able to add to the discussion the perspective of some of the hardliners in the House (other than Cantor), since it was that bunch who very nearly kept a deal from happening at all, and who are, as we've seen since, largely responsible for ensuring that pretty much nothing gets done (unless Boehner goes around them as with the fiscal cliff fight, which may be the best possible solution for future debates over the debt limit and other such things).Like Woodward's other books, a basic tick-tock, offering different participants' own versions of events and filled with little insidery details.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5the behind the scenes of politics which does not make it any more palatable