Endangered American Dream

Surveying the country's increasing numbers of working poor, the decline in our living standards, mounting federal and personal debt and a work force that is becoming lax and ill-equipped for employment, Luttwak predicts that the United States could become ``a Third World country'' by the year 2020. This powerful, tough-minded, alarming report combines a slashing analysis of the nation's economic and social ills with a decidedly mixed batch of prescribed remedies. Luttwak, a director of Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies, suggests abolishing corporate and Social Security taxes and replacing them with a value-added tax on goods and services. This, he claims, would encourage corporations to save and invest while alleviating ``the central problem of the U.S. economy: overconsumption.'' He also calls for the creation of a federal office for industrial policy; restrictions on immigration and on free trade; investment in plants, research and infrastructure; and allocation of federal money to those school districts that get proven results. (Oct.)