Author Critical of Lobbyists Now Joins Them

Jeffrey Birnbaum “gets credit for writing the book about the 1986 tax reform act. Now, it seems, the co-author of the inside-the-Beltway classic, Showdown at Gucci Gulch, is getting some credit for helping to derail tax reform,” the Washington Post reports.

“Birnbaum’s book – which he wrote with Alan Murray – chronicles the unlikely triumph of a handful of Washington officials over the well-heeled lobbyists who lingered in the hallways, trying to get what their clients wanted, during the Reagan-era debate over tax reform. These days, it’s Birnbaum who’s got clients to represent – and he’s using what he learned back then to help them get what they want in any rewrite of the tax code – and block what they don’t like.”