To the Edge ─ Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis

Advance praise for To the Edge"Why did America respond to its recent financial crisis the way it did? And why did the bailouts so quickly become unpopular, even as the economy was recovering? How much did the law stop the government from doing more? Philip Wallach's To the Edge is the very best book on all of these questions."—Tyler Cowen, George Mason University and MarginalRevolution.com

"A deeply researched book that brings a fascinating new perspective to our understanding of the financial crisis. It has often been said that while policymakers saved the economy in 200809, they lost the American public.To the Edge goes a long way to answering why. Completely absorbing."—Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize winning author ofLords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World"The financial crisis of 2008 was also a crisis of law and a crisis of government legitimacy.To the Edge plumbs all three in its revealing examination of the Bush and Obama administrations' "adhocracy" of 200810. Wallach shows that, in times of crisis, legality and legitimacy are distinct problems and often pull in opposite directions, that they remain problems when the immediate crisis has passed, and that the time to secure them for the next crisis is now. A learned, independent-minded, and deeply impressive debut."—Christopher DeMuth Sr., Hudson Institute

" To the Edge is a superb, even riveting, delineation of the extent to which responses to the financial crisis of 2008 tested basic notions of "Rule of Law" (or adherence to any predictable rules) during a time of perceived emergency. Quoting Senator Charles Schumer, "You don't quibble about details," including legal niceties, if the world economy is believed to be in the balance. This book raises fundamental questions about decisionmaking by modern state officials. It should interest everyone interested in how modern government does (or should) confront the various emergencies that are increasingly a constant of our political lives."—Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School, author ofFramed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance

Philip A. Wallach is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.