The Price of Politics

The Price of Politics chronicles the inside story of how President Obama and the U.S. Congress tried, and failed, to restore the American economy and set it on a course to fiscal stability. Woodward pierces the secretive world of Washington policymaking once again, with a close-up story crafted from meeting notes, documents, working papers, and interviews with key players, including President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. Woodward lays bare the broken relationship between President Obama and the Congress.
In a new afterword, What Is Really Happening in Washington’s Economic Wars, Woodward details the further negotiations after Obama’s reelection, when he and Congress faced the fiscal cliff only to end in a perilous stalemate.
"I had two terrific people assist me full-time on this book: Rob Garver, a 20-year veteran reporter and editor, spent just six months on this project, coming to work for me in February 2012. I call him the workhorse who energized and focused me. Determined and fair- minded, he did at least two days’ work in each single day. He never wasted a minute as best I can tell. His mature insights, skills and willingness to tell me “no” when it was needed kept us on track. Rob, 43, is one of the best natural editors and reporters I have ever worked with. He graduated from the University of Vermont and has a master’s degree from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. His sophisticated understanding of business, banking and policymaking guided me at every step. He quickly grasped the story we were trying to get and went after it. He is a delight in every way, enduring a long commute each day to and from Springfield, Virginia, where he lives with his two sons, Ryan and Andrew. Several mornings each week, he arrived at work by 6:30 a.m., before the newspapers. Without Rob, this book never would have been completed not even close."