BERKELEY – The first time I went to Washington, DC, as an adult was in 1993, when I arrived to work for President Bill Clinton in the Treasury Department. Back then, America urgently needed to rebalance the federal budget to rein in explosive growth in the debt/GDP ratio; to overhaul America’s extraordinarily expensive and inefficient health-care system; and to begin to deal with global warming via a slow ramp-up of a carbon tax.
伯克利—我长大成人后第一次来到华盛顿是在1993年，为克林顿总统的财政部做事。当是时，美国迫切地需要实现联邦预算再平衡以抑制成爆炸性增长之势的债务/GDP比率、修补美国靡费甚巨而效率低下的医疗体系，以及通过缓缓提高实施碳税开始应对全球变暖。