This paper examines why renewable energy is essential to building a healthy, reliable, and secure future, that ultimately, will be both more cost efficient and beneficial to the environment. Despite the reluctance of the American national government to commit itself to renewable energy, several countries and California are demonstrating how renewable energy can become a significant part of their economy in less than a decade. While private corporations are important, government incentives and disincentives play a decisive role in the successful conversion to renewables.

The economic reforms that are necessary to implement the neo-liberal paradigm have to be tempered in developing countries by the crucial roles of the national government in the organization, administration and monitoring of institutions that will carry out these reforms. In addition to these reforms, countries like Mexico, where half the population lives below the poverty line, need a nationally-funded and administered program to uplift the rural and urban poor. Mexico has developed such a program that has significantly improved the health and nutrition of mothers and children and class attendance. On the other hand, federal governments of wealthy nations, who espouse free market operations, can by their actions thwart free trade in order to win elections. We examine how very large agricultural subsidies to American farmers and corporations distort the price of corn and corn products in Mexico in a way that makes it difficult for many small farmers to survive. These subsidies go against the free trade principles of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by the United States, Mexico and Canada in 1994, but are justified by loopholes included in the final text. The concept of sustainable development provides a way of looking at development programs from a long-term view, with the welfare of the next generation in mind. While the poverty program, described above, has been shown to improve the nutrition. health and school attendance of many poor children, so they can expect to lead a better life than their parents, the NAFTA free trade treaty has worked to enrich a few multi-national businesses at the expense of the welfare of many farmers throughout Mexico and North America. Having used organic methods of farming that preserved the land's fertility and productivity, Mexican small farmers now have to leave the land for the over-crowded cities with little hope of making a good livelihood for their families.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Bush tax cuts in 2001 (Economic Growth and Taxpayer Relief Reconciliation Act, (EGTRRA) and in 2003 (Job Growth and Taxpayer Relief Reconciliation Act, JGTRRA) are touted as providing an aid to the economy's recovery and job creation. The data shows that George Bush's first administration had the most anemic job expansion in decades and actually saw negative net jobs created. We advocate four tax changes for small businesses that would postpone the timing of taxes and make it easier for small businesses to survive. As small businesses provide more than two-thirds of the net new jobs created each year, insuring their sustainability will go a long way to foster small business expansion and more job growth among suppliers. Currently a third of new small businesses fail within their first two years and the failure rate exceeds 60 percent by the end of the sixth year. These tax proposals for small businesses resemble &ldquo;laser surgery&rdquo; for the economy instead of the &ldquo;chemotherapy&rdquo; of tax cuts for the whole economy. These proposals focus where two-thirds or more of new jobs are created each year and will help small businesses manage their cash flow more effectively and encourage their long term sustainability. It is time for Congress to enact measures that help provide small businesses with a source of capital rather than draining them of the vital cash that they need. Such measures would not require government handouts or loans but, rather, would for the most part, merely entail postponing the taxation of business profits so long as those profits remained in the business to help insure its survival and growth.</span></span></p>

Economics is exciting because it can deal effectively with critical public policy issues. Unfortunately, this aspect of economics is usually left for more advanced courses. Consequently many students find principles of economics boring and not relevant to the real world. The use of public policy issues can foster greater student involvement in the learning process with a higher level of critical thinking skills.