The Price of Civilization_ Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity - Jeffrey D. Sachs [78]
Poverty rates stagnated for three decades and then began to increase after 2008. One-fifth of today’s children are growing up in poverty. By 2020, let us make that no more than 10 percent. Overall, more than 14 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2010. By 2020, let’s cut that rate in half. There will be no single key to success: education, training, high employment, and health care must all play their role.
Fourth, none of these gains will last long if we continue to hurl headlong into an environmental and natural resource catastrophe. America has cause to overhaul its infrastructure in any event: the roads, bridges, levees, water and sewerage systems, and power grid are antiquated and dilapidated. But we have further reason to reinvest in the core infrastructure: it needs to be overhauled decisively to introduce smart and sustainable energy use and transport for the twenty-first century, to achieve three interlocking goals: efficiency, reduced dependence on imported oil, and the transition to a low-carbon economy. Obama has set an emissions target for 2020: a cut of 17 percent relative to 2005. I will add another goal: a revamped power grid and transport infrastructure to ensure at least 5 million electric vehicles on the road by the end of the decade, on the way to a “tipping point” at which electric vehicles become a commercially viable proposition without special government support because of the services that they deliver.2
Fifth, we must get the soaring public debt under control. The budget deficit in 2010 was around 10 percent of GDP. Part of that was cyclical, caused by unusually low tax collections and unusually high unemployment insurance and other transfers due to the weak economy. Yet even with some recovery, the medium-term budget deficit is stuck at around 6 percent of GDP, enough to cause a devastating accumulation of debt and the potential for a budget crisis within a few years. Taxes will need to rise, especially on the top income earners, who have enjoyed an unprecedented bonanza in the past thirty years.
Sixth, we need to make government function effectively once again. Not only is our government in the hands of corporate lobbies, but its basic administrative machinery has collapsed. Policy making is relentlessly short term; there is little planning; and America’s vast expertise is not properly tapped. Without effective public administration, even a well-financed government is doomed to failure.
Seventh, a key to success will be much smarter foreign policy, especially a shift from “hard” power (military) approaches to “soft” power (diplomatic and assistance) strategies. We are squandering trillions of dollars in useless wars, breaking the budget and the national morale in the process. By ending these futile wars and redirecting our energies to the core reasons for conflict—widespread insecurity, extreme poverty, a scramble for resources, and rising environmental stresses—we will enhance our security at a tiny fraction of today’s military outlays. By 2015, we should be able to slash the military budget by at least half, from 5 percent of GDP to between 2 and 3 percent of GDP, and redirect a part of those savings to better investments in global stability.
Eighth and finally, these goals should be seen as society’s ultimate objective: greater life satisfaction, both today and in future generations. For that we need better measurements of what underpins life satisfaction, going beyond mere market income to include leisure, good health, a safe environment, and fairness and trust within society. With better guideposts and indicators of happiness, we should be able to answer