President Bush: Keep Your Eyes on the Ball

On Wednesday, I listened to part of an interview with Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the UN on the Millennium Project. The project was started in 2002 and Sachs has been brought on to lead a team of 300 scholars in analyzing and recommended policies for addressing world poverty. In mid-January, 2005, his group will issue a report which should have a major impact on the developed world’s approach to poverty. I was struck by the simplicity of his approach. Sachs believes that the problem in places like sub-Saharan Africa starts with the issue of survivability; if people aren’t able to meet their basic needs to survive, then economic and cultural growth will suffer. For example, nets for sleeping are important tools used to help protect people against malaria. Nets cost about 2 dollars each, more than a typical at-risk family can afford. When asked if his policy recommendations in the upcoming report involve writing huge checks to solve impossible problems, he said that his recommendations will be of this sort—to help at-risk families get nets by delivering them straight to them. The CDC reports that most people who die from malaria are African children less than five years old. Five years old! I just want to make three points about this (I have more, but I’ll spare you. Take a deep breath--this will take a while):

1) Everyone knows that there are serious problems that seem hopeless to solve, but let’s be clear. They’re not hopeless because we don’t have solutions to implement. They’re hopeless because we can’t agree on a basic paradigm for addressing the issues. We don’t agree on basis for the solutions. As a student of psychology, I believe in Maslow’s Theory of Motivation and Human Needs: basic needs must be met (physical safety, security, physiological, survival, etc.) before self-actualization can be achieved. More simply, have you ever tried studying for an exam when you have the flu and have missed consecutive days at work? I have. It’s much harder than studying when you’re in a quiet library with nothing else to worry about. How is a family supposed to bring crops to market when they can’t feed themselves? How are they to do well in school when they have to worry about their safety and the safety of their families? Yet, many people believe that those in poverty want to be poor, or that they’re somehow innately inferior. If we are serious about helping the poor—and I'm not convinced all of us or even a majority are—then we need to give something away. Sorry! It’s just the way it is. We need to give free nets to people in Africa. We need to give cash to individuals at home BEFORE they’re expected to advance socially. People need the means to get beyond survivability issues first.

Someone may point out the bad effects of hand-outs, like reduced self-esteem, dependency, apathy, etc., and that may be a problem for some people in poverty, but let's consider the alternative: we have problematic welfare programs in the U.S. like TANF, expecting single parents to forego schooling in order to work a job that pays minimum wage in order to get public financial support, while reducing child day-care support access, eliminating or reducing transportation programs and services, limiting health care access in terms of quality and services, and not accounting for the quality of work that is available for these individuals, especially the "hard to serve" individuals with severe psychological and developmental disabilities. We're not addressing survivability. Survivability requires more than a welfare check. It requires social support ranging from basic health care to basic education to access to clean water. Five years from now you’re going to see what the effects from programs like TANF are—I’ll post the reports on this blog (don’t let the numbers of people “leaving welfare” since TANF was implemented fool you; it’s complicated and enough to talk about for another topic, but suffice it to say that the results have been severely skewed by supporters of the program, which include both parties—thanks Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress!). I’ll concede that there are exceptions to Maslow’s Theory and many have left poverty without direct public assistance. But since the beginning of mankind, poverty has not been solved and it’s NOT because of handouts and welfare programs.

2) Five years old! Can you imagine if a million kids in the US died every year of a single disease what kind of response there would be? Even if it was in Canada we’d still be outraged. Problems in places like the 49 countries in Africa deserve MORE attention for this fact alone. Say what you want about the causes of poverty, but surely children aren’t at fault.

3) Finally, President Bush and Congress have an opportunity here. 300 scholars worked on this project. These are experts. We should listen to them. In spite of the recently strained relationship between the U.S. and the U.N., we should listen to the best policy advice that is out there. Because Sachs is an advisor to Annan and he’s one of those “intellectual types” is no excuse not to consider the report’s recommendations. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball—and I don’t mean the kind of ball that you hit with a bat. I fear that we’re going to hear more words being devoted to the issue of steroid use in baseball in next year’s State of the Union Address than direct poverty solutions (tax cuts don’t count). This issue requires presidential leadership. A quarter of our world’s population lives in severe poverty. The official poverty rate rose from 12.1 percent in 2002 to 12.5 percent in 2003. The number in poverty increased also, by 1.3 million people, to 35.9 million in 2003. I would like to see at least 12.5 percent of the State of the Union Address devoted to dealing with poverty DIRECTLY, including plans to increase survivability and access to basic needs.