Hamilton's Blessing Book Analysis

In the book, Hamilton’s Blessing, Gordon’s premise is that the national debt of the United States has become so high that concerned individuals no longer think of it. Gordon uses economic history and theory to explore the start, rise and decline of the United States Debt. The first sentence in his book reads “The United States was born in debt.” The book traces the ‘curse’ of the national debt dating back from 1792 when Alexander Hamilton proposed the virtues of America’s debt. Gordon offers a ‘biography’ of the debt making the book a human drama as he explains the positive myriads ways that it has influenced and shaped the history of America economy. Gordon is attempting to provide the audience with a brief history of the American debt

The title of the book, Hamilton’s Blessing, is extracted from the action by Hamilton of creating the first bank in the United States which continues to stand even today. The creation of the bank created a critical political issue starting from 1791 and years that would follow. The big idea by Hamilton does still exist even in today’s economic environment. The proposal by Hamilton was met with widespread resistance from individuals such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. It was necessary to create a federal bank because of the benefits they oversaw would be achieved in the future. The analysis made by Gordon in his book is consistent with arguments made by to have a bank that would be effective in the utilization of the powers authorized from the government as was implied in the constitution . In his factual analysis, Gordon asserts that the Congress or the politicians in general had presented failings and they could not be trusted with controlling the federal deficit. According to Gordon, the problem is not the size of the debt. The real problem is the lack of the political will to either have the taxes increased or cut the spending so that in the times of prosperity and peace, the national debt can be

All the titles of these chapters provide an implication of the argument made by Gordon. In the first chapter titled, 'The Hamiltonian Miracle, ' ' Gordon explains how Hamilton had to pay off the costs emanating from the revolutionary war through creation of a federal bank which created the first national deficit by assuming the debts from various states. The second chapter, ' 'Andrew Jackson Redeems the Debt, ' ' reviews the events after the 1812 War specifically how the seventh President of the United States used surpluses that had been generated through high tariffs ' 'to rid the Federal Government of debt entirely ' ' and contribute largely to the first depression. The third chapter, ' 'Armageddon and the National Debt, ' ' the books shows the Civil War imposition on America’s first Federal income tax which questioned how the tax burden could have been distributed. In ' 'The Twilight of the Old Consensus, ' ' Gordon provides a trace of the fiscal policy after the end of World War 1 and how it led to the shock experienced during the Great depression. Finally, in ' 'Keynesianism and the Madison Effect, ' ' Gordon argues that after the end of World War 2, economists relied on Keynesian deficit-spending theory to dictate fiscal and monetary policy. These chapters have been used to sum up the