National Suicide: How Washington Is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z Book

National Suicide is a solid and informative analysis of government waste, and offers potential solutions that seem viable and reasonable. It is thorough in its high-level view of the multitude of programs and departments the federal government has built over the decades that have failed to provide what they were designed for, or have obfuscated any possible solutions or better approaches, or have made things worse and more costly, or have resulted in little more than bloated cost and bureaucracy and unaccountable operations.

Some of what's here is shocking and depressing, some is redundant and obvious. In general, Gross's overview is useful and underrepresented in most discussions of government waste. He gives numbers to show exactly how much is being wasted here and there and suggests what could be done differently. One criticism I can offer are that Gross's stance on climate change is misaligned with current scientific evidence, and this may hurt his credibility when it comes to other topics, although very few of those have any relation to science.