The New New Deal The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era (Hardcover)

From the Publisher: The New, New Deal is a riveting story about change in the Obama era?and an essential handbook for voters who want the truth about the president, his record, and his enemies. Time senior correspondent Michael Grunwald tells the secret history of the stimulus bill, the purest distillation of Change We Can Believe In, a microcosm of Obama's policy successes and political failures. Though it is reviled by the right and rejected by the left, it really is a new New Deal, larger than FDR's and just as transformative. It prevented an imminent depression, while jump-starting Obama's long-term agenda.      The stimulus is pouring $90 billion into clean energy, reinventing the way America is powered and fueled; it includes unprecedented investments in renewables, efficiency, electric cars, a smarter grid, cleaner coal, and more. It's carrying health care into the digital era. Its Race to the Top initiative may be the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It produced the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, a broadband initiative reminiscent of rural electrification, and an overhaul of the New Deal's unemployment insurance system. It's revamping the way government addresses homelessness, fixes infrastructure, and spends money.      Grunwald reveals how Republicans have obscured these achievements through obstruction and distortion. The stimulus launched a genuine national comeback. It also saved millions of jobs, while creating legacies that could rival the Hoover Dam: the world's largest wind farm, a new U.S. battery industry, a new high-speed rail network, the world's highest-speed Internet network.      Its main legacy, like the New Deal's, will be change.