The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs

The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs is a 2012 non-fiction book. Alongside a foreword by President George W. Bush, it features articles from academics and businesspeople, including five winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Background

The book is the first one published by the George W. Bush Institute, a think tank located at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The foreword is written by George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2000 to 2008.^[1][3][5] At the end of his presidency, the nation was on its way to a Great Recession due to a downturn in the economy and the financial crisis of 2008.^[6] In May 2011, James Glassman, the Founding Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, published an article in the National Review calling for free market solutions to the recession, which would lead to four percent growth.^[7] Later, the institute decides to publish a full-fledged book about it, and Glassman wrote the introduction.^[1] The book was published on July 17, 2012.^[1][8]

Promotional efforts

On August 5, 2012, President Bush and James Glassman presented the book at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.^[9] The presentation was broadcast five times on Book TV from August to December 2012.^[9]

It was also presented by Amity Shlaes at the Harvard Club of New York.^[10]

Moreover, the Philadelphia Media Network published an excerpt by Brendan Miniter, the editor.^[11]

It was also promoted by George W. Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, who served as the Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007.^[12] He suggested the book should be used by then presidential candidate Mitt Romney to offer a bold vision for leadership and win the election, instead of simply criticizing President Barack Obama's policies.^[12]

Content

The book contains essays by academics and businesspeople, five of which are Nobel Prize-winning economists: Robert Lucas, Gary Becker, Edward Prescott, Vernon Smith and Myron Scholes.^[13]

According to a review published in The New York Times, "The ideas in the book include lowering corporate tax rates, shifting away from taxing income to taxing consumption and property, promoting innovation by letting professors keep gains from their research, expanding free-trade pacts with Japan and other countries, refocusing immigration policy to recruit more high-skill workers, and expanding the work force by lowering payroll taxes on employees with children."^[6]

Critical reception

In The Daily Beast, Paul Begala admitted that Bush was "right to focus on growth", adding "Growth is the secret sauce."^[14]

The Asia Times "agree[d] with the authors of the Bush Institute volume that the entrepreneurial engine can be jump-started" as opposing to "derid[ing]" entrepreneurship as "as in Obama's now infamous "You didn't build that!" gaffe".^[15] However, they suggested the book's solutions were "like Pascal's wager".^[15] Adding that "economics is more like medicine than rocket science," they suggested that those solutions would have to be tested to know if they would lead to positive results.^[15] They concluded that should those solutions not be applied immediately (in 2012), "the medicine may no longer work" four years later (in 2016).^[15]

References