The Two Percent Solution

"The Two Percent Solution is a welcome return to political thinking on a big-canvas agenda. Miller's plans do not reduce to cynical exercises ... designed mainly to win and hold on to executive power. Instead, they are intended to include all citizens under the simple idea that the public sector can intelligently do some good in the world."

—CHRIS LEHMANN, Washington Post Book World

"Most people think that making America a far more decent place—a place with a lot less poverty and misery—is an unattainable dream. It ain't so—and this book explains why. Matt Miller's book is the best explanation I've seen so far of how a bit more money and a lot more sense can improve our society."

—PAUL KRUGMAN

"A small marvel of a book, an extended discussion of public policy that will wake you up rather than put you to sleep ... the Republican in the White House should take heed as well."

—GARY ROSEN, Wall Street Journal

"Matt Miller shows that the biggest crisis we face is the crisis of imagination. Political leaders refuse to think outside the conventional ruts. But Miller has done just that, superbly. I haven't felt this hopeful about domestic policy and our national prospects in a long time."

—DAVID BROOKS

"In this stimulating and constructive book, syndicated columnist Matthew Miller not only calls our attention to some of the most serious and urgent problems confronting our country, but also accomplishes the even more laudable feat of offering some workable—and affordable—solutions. ... Miller has a gift for setting forth his ideas in vigorous, direct and irresistibly lively language."

—MERLE RUBIN, Los Angeles Times

"Matt Miller for president ... If you care about where the nation is headed, if you worry about 40 million Americans having no health coverage, about struggling urban schools ... about the 15 million Americans who work full time but still live below the poverty line, read Miller's book ... Miller is passionate and bold."

—CHRIS SATULLO, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Read the first 50 pages of The Two Percent Solution and you won't be able to stop. Matt Miller is a major new talent in American public life, and his first book flows like a fresh, cold stream through the Rockies, slicing through mountains of rhetoric toward irresistible conclusions. But be warned: you won't be able to finish the book without feeling incensed about the way we're failing to fix our health care, our schools, and our future."

—DAVID GERGEN

"Whether you mostly agree or disagree with Matt Miller, you can never fault him for thinking small. Indeed, he is fast becoming one of the most original and interesting essayists on politics and policy in the country. The Two Percent Solution offers another intelligent challenge to the tired conventions of contemporary political debate from a man whose chief interest is always the progress of his country."

—JOHN MCCAIN

"[Miller is] an engaging writer and out-of-the-box thinker ... His solutions uniquely combine a powerful moral dimension with economic sophistication and a lot of original thinking."

—DAN SELIGMAN, Commentary

"If liberals and conservatives could ever agree on anything, it would have to be something as blazingly simple—and original—as Matt Miller's 'two percent solution.' And Miller is one hundred percent right: We've got to get serious about fixing our nation's substandard schools, insultingly low wages, and unaffordable health insurance. The Two Percent Solution is an ideal place to begin the debate on rebuilding America."

—BARBARA EHRENREICH

"While other political authors rant and point fingers, Miller offers readers a centrist vision of how we might redeem America's 'commitments to equal opportunity and a minimally decent life' ... The strength of Miller's book isn't just in these ideas ... It comes in boldly arguing that these ideas belong at the center of the political debate even after a decade in which one president miniaturized the national agenda and another miniaturized the nation's resources."

—MARK PAUL, The Sacramento Bee

"[An] elegant read"

—DAVID GRATZER, National Review

"A grand new policy vision that seeks to enrich public life and solve seemingly intractable policy dilemmas while re-animating the dormant center of American politics."

—BENJAMIN HEALY, The Atlantic Monthly Online

"For pure American-style optimism, nothing beats Miller's reformist thesis—carefully researched and argued in convincing economic and political detail—that at the cost of two percent of the GDP, health insurance could become universal, public education for the poor could be dramatically improved and poverty could be nearly eliminated.... This book is a blueprint to the United States society I wish I lived in."

—GREGG EASTERBROOK, New Republic Online

"Original, arresting, and carefully argued, The Two Percent Solution establishes Matt Miller as the liberal to reckoned with. Conservatives need to pay attention—because what Miller is proposing today, we're all going to be debating tomorrow."

—DAVID FRUM

"In addressing the obligation of the more to the less fortunate ... Miller, a disciple of philosopher John Rawls, is at his most prophetic."

—R. STEPHEN WARNER, Christian Century

"Matt Miller's Two Percent Solution challenges us to get serious about social justice by confronting the reality of America, not the unreality of most political campaigns. This critical book asks us to open our minds far enough to see that real remedies exist for some of this country's toughest problems."

—BILL BRADLEY

"The Two Percent Solution proves what those who have read his newspaper column know: Matt Miller is not only brilliant but he has what is even rarer, an original mind that comes up with fresh answers to old problems. And what's more, he presents it all in prose that is as lively as it is incisive."

—CHARLES PETERS

Suppose I told you that for just two cents on the national dollar we could have a country where everyone had health insurance, every full-time worker earned a living wage, every poor child had a great teacher in a fixed-up school, and politicians spent their time with average Americans because they no longer had to grovel to wealthy donors? Suppose I also said we'd largely be using "conservative" means (like tax subsidies and vouchers) to reach these seemingly "liberal" goals—and that when we were done, government would be smaller than it was when Ronald Reagan was president?

We can't solve our biggest problems without money. It's true that money isn't everything. But for the problems we're talking about it's a lot. We can't buy health insurance without money. We can't lure better college graduates to teach in our toughest schools without money. We can't lift workers out of poverty without money. We can't offset the corrosive influence of big political donors without money.

We have the money. Consider two numbers (22 and 20) and one mystery. Federal spending compared to the overall size of the economy is the best measure of the "size" of government. Under Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, federal spending averaged 22 percent of GDP. Under Bill Clinton, faster growth combined with spending restraint pulled this figure down to 20 percent of GDP. In ways the press and public still haven't appreciated, the budget was balanced (and then unbalanced again) "downward." Yet today, even after historic spending increases for defense and homeland security, and after making provision for a costly new prescription drug benefit under Medicare, George W. Bush wants to hold federal spending at 20 percent of GDP or less in the coming year because, as he puts it, we've "met our needs." If Bush were to run the government at the size his father's and Ronald Reagan's budgets routinely proposed, the feds would soon have more than $200 billion more to spend each year. The mystery, of course, is why we never hear about the fact that, in overall terms, the rest of government is being downsized this dramatically. The upshot: Two cents on the national dollar can get us a long way toward real answers, and can do so through a government as small as the one we were accustomed to under a conservative Republican icon.

There's a deal to be made. On health, schools, wages, and more, a series of problem-solving "grand bargains" can be reached that involve the same basic approach. Liberals have to be open to market-friendly approaches to these problems, as opposed to simply expanding traditional government programs. In exchange, conservatives have to be willing to pony up money equal to the size of these problems, rather than offering token sums that let them cynically pretend to have a "plan."