Why the Next President Should Focus on a Prosperity Agenda

The authors analyze what the agenda is and explain why addressing it at home and abroad will be the most important challenge that faces the next president of the United States. It is challenging because it identifies actions that ought to be taken and policies that should be reversed. The new president can meet the challenge if he becomes the great persuader, not solely the great enforcer. The payoff, the analysis concludes, will be mutually beneficial. Not only did the U.S. decision to supply vast amounts of humanitarian aid to the victims of the tsunami disaster that occurred during the Bush administration's first term save the lives of people living in the path of destruction and improve the world's opinion of the United States, but it cost far less than the United States spends in Iraq in one day. Moreover, addressing the Prosperity Agenda will provide a base of supportive states on which the president can rely to join the United States in fighting the most serious threats that the world faces—terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, it is recommended that the president take the lead in signing a compact between the haves and the have-nots that was proposed by the UN secretary general at the turn of the century. Implementing that compact will facilitate the Prosperity Agenda.