Overlooked financial anecdotes from an early Bush-era tell-all.

"Are you proposing that we accelerate all the tax cuts, or just for those in the middle? Won't the top-rate people benefit the most from eliminating the double taxation of dividends? Didn't we already give them a break at the top?" Bush asked the assembled team.

Explaining that "[t]he 2001 tax cut had been criticized for the disproportionate boost it gave to the top 5 percent of earners; it wasn't literally regressive, but it surely departed from the progressive ideals that had long defined the tax policies of both parties," Suskind quotes then-Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Glenn Hubbard reminding Bush that the high end was "where the entrepreneurs are." But Bush is still on the fence. "This is about demand," he says. "I want this to work. ... I am not in favor of excluding people."

After a little back-and-forth, however, Bush comes around, appeased, the book recounts, by a mix of jargon intended to confuse him and phrases like "game changer" and "stick to principle" that have a proven soothing effect on the president. Finally, he concludes that the economy isn't quite as bad as Lindsey has been making it out to be, otherwise the Republicans wouldn't have fared so well in the elections: "Well, you know ... do you know what the unemployment rate is? It is 5.7 percent! There are a lot of presidents who have had to confront much higher unemployment."

Indeed: Barack Obama will be inaugurated with rates around 7 percent.