Title: Side-Effects: What Candidates Don’t Tell You
Author Name: Tomas Payne
The book candidates don’t want us to see.
“A must-read guide to campaign promises.” “Facts everyone should see before they vote.”
Candidates rally for our support and appeal to our anger and frustrations, often offering radical solutions, but what aren’t they telling us? Sure they pitch the good times they’ll bring. What about the side-effects and costs of their medicine.
Side-Effects: What Candidates Don’t Tell You takes you behind the scenes on issues of the day and campaign promises. It focuses on consequences, issues, and options. It also challenges myths such as who are the wealthy, and what is the history of depressed wages. The emphasis is on shedding light, exposing myths, examining consequences, and exploring options, not on personalities. Sorry, no dirt on the people, just on their promises.
Side-Effects will answer questions such as:
Ø Will raising income and estate taxes hurt the billionaires and redistribute wealth?
Ø Why healthcare is broken and what options we have.
Ø Why wages are depressed and what we can do about it.Ø What are the implications of immigration plans?
Side-Effects cuts through the BS to look at campaign promises on wealth redistribution, taxes, Social Security, healthcare, depressed wages, and many other topics and aims to bring facts to these issues.
Author Bio:
Tomas Payne is a CPA and
has an MBA in Finance, BS in Political Science and over 30 years of business
experience. He is a longtime student of business, the ever-entertaining field
of economics, and of the political shell game.
Author Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomaspayne
Book Genre: Nonfiction (political)
Publisher: Finlee Augare Books
Release Date: July 1, 2016
Buy Link
Excerpt One (300-500 or so Words):
Isn’t it about time for us to talk about issues based on facts
and data instead of oft repeated mantras that take on a sacred quality? These
mantras are repeated phrases that may or may not have any basis in fact or
reality but tend to sway our thinking. To say “There’s no place like home”
(from the Wizard of Oz) is harmless and based on valid experience. The
statement that we only use 10% of our brains has been debunked, yet was the
premise of a recent movie which was otherwise great fun. Political mantras, on
the other hand, can be quite dangerous when they are based on false beliefs.
For those of us lucky enough to live in a democracy, we have
elections every couple of years. Actually, the United States is a republic,
since we elect representatives rather than have each voter show up in
Washington to decide on every issue. If nothing else, there aren’t enough
hotels or even barns in Washington to house everyone. In lieu of that, our
representatives create laws on our behalf, which gives them considerable power
over us and significant incentive to covet positions in Washington.
In anticipation of elections, candidates promise us gorgeous
beaches and forget to tell us about the sharks. They know that most people just
want to be left alone to live their lives without fear of interference from
outsiders, neighbors or the government.
Candidates take advantage of our distraction by coming to us
every two to four to six years with sound bites, mantras, and pleas to get our
votes. They appeal to our emotions rather than to our intellect since that is
the quickest way to our hearts. Then many return to doing whatever they planned
to do, hoping we won’t peek behind the curtain to see what they’re really up
to. We get climate deniers and economic deniers, both of whom deny the facts.
They should be embarrassed at being exposed, yet typically they are not.
We try to get them to tell us what they would actually do if we
gave them the power, and what the side-effects would be. But candidates don’t
get elected by telling us the pain associated with their promises. Instead,
they spin myths and withhold the effects of their plans as they promise us all
gain and no pain.
In order for democracy to function well, it requires informed
citizens who see through this bombardment of myths and misinformation. Unfortunately,
some topics are hard to understand and may seem counter-intuitive. If you’re
looking for easy answers, there often aren’t any, which is one of the most
important things candidates don’t tell us. They hope we won’t dig.
So, let’s peal back a few layers of the onion to see what’s
going on.
My Review:
This is a great book for me because I follow politics. I wish that the presidential debates had this book in mind when they answered their questions. Obviously the book has some bias, however the facts are facts and can not be disputed. Graphs and figures in this book definitely made me think about things differently. In a world where our President gets no respect, it is good to know that there are still people out there willing to know the facts! I am giving this book a 4/5. I was given a copy, all opinions are my own.
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