Book

Pat’s first book,“The Billionaire Boondoggle: How Our Politicians Let Corporations and Bigwigs Steal Our Money and Jobs” was published by Thomas Dunne Books at St. Martin’s Press in March 2019. Order one here.

Here’s a description:

The first comprehensive look at how politicians let the entertainment industry bilk taxpayers, hijack public policy and hurt economic investment, starting and ending with Trump.

It is widely believed, that a city in possession of a fortune must be in want of a partner who will drive economic development and thus be worth a substantial dowry of tax abatements, subsidies, and grants. These partners always prove faithless, though, especially when it comes to the entertainment industry. Never date an actor, as they say.

From stadiums and movie productions to casinos and mega-malls to convention centers and hotels, cities and states have paid out billions of dollars to the world’s corporate titans in an attempt to boost their economies, create new and better jobs, and lure well-known events such as the Olympics and the Super Bowl to within their borders, not to mention give officials a chance to have their pictures taken with celebrities. That Big Entertainment drives bigger economies is a myth, however, one that has nonetheless permeated every facet of policy making despite the overwhelming evidence that it results in a raw deal for the taxpaying public.

In The Billionaire Boondoggle, Garofalo takes readers on a tour of publically-subsidized corporate America to explain how that myth came to be, how much money America’s elected officials throw away, and why courting Big Entertainment just courts disaster.

Kirkus Reviews called it “an astute argument against the courting of big entertainment by politicians and city leaders”:

Armed with palpable outrage, Garofalo systematically supports his allegations with pages of fact-based, real-world examples. … Though he advocates for swift policy changes and corporate tax reform, the base-level solution, he writes, is resisting shoulder-shrugging complacency and voting in local representatives who will resist this type of inequitable exchange.

Jules Boykoff, author of the excellent “Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics” called it a “remarkable, richly documented book thrumming with memorable moments and prickly personalities.”

Pat is represented by Rob Kirkpatrick at Kirkpatrick Literary.