The Two Percent Solution
Fixing America's Problems In Ways Liberals And Conservatives Can Love
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Suppose someone told you that for just two cents on the national dollar we could have a country where everyone had health insurance, full-time workers earned a living wage, poor children had great teachers in fixed-up schools, and politicians no longer had to grovel to wealthy donors. And suppose that when we were done, government would still be smaller than it was when Ronald Reagan was president. If you're like most people, you'd probably think that for two cents on the dollar this sounds like an intriguing deal. But 2 percent of America's GDP is more than 200 billion a year--way beyond what politicians in Washington think is possible.
Between our proper intuition that 2 percent is a small amount, and the Washington consensus that a 2 percent shift in priorities is beyond imagining, lies the opportunity to transform American politics. In this agenda-setting book, Matthew Miller challenges our country (and those who would lead it) to change the way we think about our public responsibilities before the baby boomers' retirement siphons all the money out of the system. The Two Percent Solution is a call to arms that no serious candidate, Republican or Democrat, can afford to ignore.
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Miller counts off the grim statistics of American society's most intractable problems: "40 million uninsured; 15 million working poor; 10 million poor kids in failing schools." Soon, making these costs seem trivial, baby boomers will retire. And the political system, distorted by money and special interests, refuses to seriously address these issues. Miller, a radio commentator and syndicated columnist, has a plan. With an increase of government spending of 2% of GDP, we can solve all these problems, but it will require "grand bargains" between the parties, with Democrats agreeing to accept market-oriented programs if Republicans will generously fund them. For instance, Miller says many Republicans would support universal health coverage if Democrats would allow a plan relying on tax subsidies to cover private insurance policies. Based on similar principles, Miller crafts Solomonic proposals to raise teacher pay, experiment with school vouchers, subsidize a living wage for poor workers, publicly finance elections, slow the growth rate of Social Security and Medicare expenses, and offset the costs of the new initiatives. Though he calls it "ideologically androgynous," Miller's agenda resembles the New Democrat platform and will be a harder sell to the committed tax cutters of the GOP. Miller has pitched his "Two Percent Solution" to dozens of influential policymakers across the political spectrum. The cautiously favorable reactions he reports from these encounters and from focus groups and polling commissioned for the book are the most convincing evidence of the plausibility of his vision. Sadly, sensible compromise still seems unlikely, but Miller's unflappable salesmanship is irresistible.
