Shortly after be realized his long-held dream by masterminding the first Republican takeover of the House and Senate in forty years, House Speaker Newt Gingrich committed his followers to a daring and perilous goal: by scaling back or dismantling some of the nation's most cherished social welfare programs, they would balance the budget. Eliminating the deficit, once just one facet of the Republicans' plan to change America, soon became an all-consuming obsession.

But barely a year later, in the grim winter of 1995, Gingrich and his troops were in desperate retreat as their poll ratings plummeted and a government shutdown they had helped engineer enraged the voters. Gingrich was hardly the first politician to promise to balance the budget. So did George Bush, Ross Perot, Ronald Reagan, and dozens more. All of them wound up like Gingrich - humbled, embarrassed, and in some cases out of office after they tried to convert breezy campaign promises into reality.

Why is it so hard to make America's checkbook balance? Why has the nation managed only eight budget surpluses in the half century since the end of World War II? Why did the first Republican Congress since the 1950s fail so miserably to redeem its most important promise to voters? Mirage tells why. Here, in compelling detail, are the inside stories of two decades of often noble but usually unsuccessful attempts to solve a problem that has vexed the nation throughout its history.