Hamden Native's Book: U.S. House Republicans "Sabotage" Recession Recovery

For the last two years, the Republican party has used its control of the House of Representatives not to help pull the country out of recession, but to assure that Barack Obama is denied a second term in office.

So writes Hamden native Daniel Altman in "Sabotage: How the Republican Party Crippled America's Economic Recovery."

A journalist and economist, Altman grew up in Hamden and graduated from Hamden High School. He went on to earned a doctorate from Harvard and has served on the staffs of The Economist, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune.

He now teaches economics at New York University's Stern School of Business.

His name is a familiar one in Hamden -- his mother is Ann Altman, a former member of the Legislative Council and current chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission. He dedicated the book to his parents, who, he writes, "gave me these values."

From the description of "Sabotage" at Amazon.com:

In this explosive election-year book, Daniel Altman, author of "Neoconomy: George Bush's Revolutionary Gamble With America's Future", reveals how the Republican Party sabotaged America's recovery in the aftermath of its worst downturn in decades.

Altman traces the Republicans' actions and rhetoric from the moment they took control of the House of Representatives in the election of 2010. At every opportunity, they thwarted policies that could have helped the economy to regain its strength. They even tried to stop the Federal Reserve from stepping in to act where Congress had not.

All of their actions served to advance one goal: the defeat of President Barack Obama in the election of 2012. Everyone knew that if the unemployment rate stayed high, the president would face a tough fight for re-election. The Republicans did everything they could to make that fight tougher, and the American people suffered enormously as a result.

"SABOTAGE" reveals how the Republicans forced average Americans to pay the price for the their political ambitions, and the hypocrisy that underpinned their every move. He also exposes the devastating effects the Republicans' policies would have on the American economy if they were to regain the White House in 2012.

Altman is a former economics columnist for The New York Times and The Economist. He also served as an economic advisor in the British government. He currently teaches economics at New York University's Stern School of Business and is also chief economist of the website Big Think.