In 2003 I decided to write a book. I had been writing a regular column for National Review Online about the economy and I wanted to take those columns (and some occasional pieces that I'd written for TCS) and re-work them into a broader argument. Before it had any pages, or a publisher, it had a name - The Bush Boom. I started to throw out some feelers. The publishers loved the title. A sarcastic book, excoriating President Bush for tanking the economy was greatly needed, they told me. Clever title, they twittered knowingly. When I told them that the title wasn't sarcastic; that the data showed that the economy really had started to boom, and that someone needed to tell the world, the conversation invariably and abruptly ended.

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