The May issue of Esquire Magazine has an article by Jeffrey Sachs entitled "A Simple Plan to Save the World". In it he outlines the approach -- and costs -- for solving many of the planet's health and social problems. The bottom line? To solve many significant health problems, he writes "about $25 billion per year from the rich world could do the job, permitting a massive attack on AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, vaccine-preventable diseases, and unsafe childbirth, among other killer conditions."

If we were to extend programs to broader social issues, Sachs writes "we'd probably need another $50 billion or so from the rich world to address the interconnected challenges of education, roads, and the rest, for a total of about $75 billion per year. Perhaps half of that, roughly $35 billion, would come from the United States."

$35 billion a year from the US is a lot, probably tripling (depending on what you count) current foreign assistance. That said, what would be the benefits on both global prosperity and the US' standing in the world? We spend hundreds of billions on other endeavors, why not this? Seriously?