James K. Galbraith, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, sits in at the TPMCafe Book Club this week to discuss his new book, The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

Writes Galbraith:

The judicial coup of December 2000 that installed Bush and Cheney brought back some of Reagan's men and his most extreme policies - tax cuts for the wealthy, big increases in military spending, aggressive deregulation. But it didn't bring back the ideas. Instead, it became clear that Bush and Cheney had no real ideas, no larger public justification. ... Under Bush and Cheney, oil and gas, drug companies and defense contractors, insurers and usurers control the government of the United States, and it does what they want. This is the predator state.