Get the inside scoop on the most powerful city on Earth Washington, D.C.: Capital of the Free World; the most powerful city on Earth. No other country, company, or international organization can compare with the reach and wealth of the federal government. Policymaking — the art of deciding what programs to support, what laws to pass, or what regulations to write — is at the core of what Washington does and is what everyone, from the President on down, wants to influence. How Washington Actually Works For Dummies isn't a dry explanation of the American system of government but a playbook for how Washington really works: who has a seat at the table, how the policymaking process works, and how one survives. It takes you inside the political process in Washington, discusses changes in recent decades, and explains how the parts fit together. You find out: Who really runs Washington Why the President’s power is limited How Congress (and its committee structure) works What the bureaucrats — the men and women behind the curtain — do to earn your tax dollars How lobbyists, activists, and other players influence policy In a presidential election year when economic issues are center stage and the candidates will go head to head in policy debates, there’s no better time to discover the ins and outs of how policy is actually made.

Washington, D.C. The one city that affects all our lives. The one city where the game has only one name: Power. Hedrick Smith, the Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, takes us inside the beltway to show who wields the most power—and for what ends. The Power Game explains how some members of Congress have built personal fortunes on PAC money, how Michael Deaver was just the tip of the influence-peddling iceberg, how “dissidents” in the Pentagon work to keep the generals honest, how insiders and “leakers” use the Times and The Washington Post and their personal bulletin boards. Congressional staffers more powerful than their bosses, media advisors more powerful than the media, money that not only talks but intimidated and threatens. That’s Washington. That’s The Power Game. Praise for Power Game “The Power Game may be the most sweeping and in many ways the most impressive portrait of the culture of the federal government to appear in a single work in many decades. . . . Knowledgeable and informative.”—The New York Times Book Review “There are oodles of good yarns in this book about the nature of power and the eccentricities that accompany it. . . . Delightfully fresh . . . [Hedrick] Smith is a superb writer.”—The Washington Post “Not only the inside stuff, but the insightful stuff—an original view of the power playing.”—William Safire

Analyzes the growing divide between the incomes of the wealthy class and those of middle-income Americans, exonerating popular suspects to argue that the nation's political system promotes greed and under-representation.

With a New Foreword In So Damn Much Money, veteran Washington Post editor and correspondent Robert Kaiser gives a detailed account of how the boom in political lobbying since the 1970s has shaped American politics by empowering special interests, undermining effective legislation, and discouraging the country’s best citizens from serving in office. Kaiser traces this dramatic change in our political system through the colorful story of Gerald S. J. Cassidy, one of Washington’s most successful lobbyists. Superbly told, it’s an illuminating dissection of a political system badly in need of reform.

The #1 New York Times bestseller! Washington D.C. might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation's capital, just millionaires. Through the eyes of Leibovich we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year; how political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city's most powerful and puzzled-over journalist; how a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent "brand" than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on "changing Washington" can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath. Outrageous, fascinating, and very necessary, This Town is a must-read whether you're inside the highway which encircles DC - or just trying to get there.