My name is dan, chairman of the American EnterpriseInstitute Board of trustees. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the urban lecture it summit, featuring nicholas eberstadt. Tok holds that henry went chair in political economy at aei he is being honored with this years award and is one of aeis and americas great intellectuals. At this moment in our nations will pointcks work a way forward for our country and offer a vision for how to revitalize our nation in a postpandemic world. Nicks scholarship and all aei histori navigateders historic challenges. Meets wellpositioned to challenges headon by supplying the visionary thinking and actionable policy solutions that our nation needs. Aei scholars will promote free people and free markets, increased economic and social mobility, revitalize constitutional order, bolster american civil life, and promote americas leadership in the world. On behalf of all of us at aei, thank you for your support that makes our vital work possible. In the spirit of Irving Kristol, who loved his country and believed in the power of ideas, i know that together we can build an even stronger, more resilient, and more prosperous america for our generation and those to come. Thank you, dan. Good afternoon, everyone. I am speaking to you live from aei headquarters in washington, d. C. On behalf of the entire aei Community Welcome to our annual Irving Kristol award lecture. We would like to thank all of our generous friends who supported this years event including the chevron corporation, exxon mobil, liberty mutual, and the peter g. Peterson foundation. All of us i could not be happier to honor our dear friend and esteemed colleague the henry chair and political economy doctor nicholas eberstadt. In the four decade since nick first came to us, he and aei have grown together in so many ways the access they did a five nick has influenced and shaped the institutes work and today the excellent, the breadth and community of his work stand as great reflections of her most dearly held values. The Irving Kristol award its highest honor given by aei. We named this award in honor of Irving Kristol because he believed in the endurance of American Values and the Eventual Success of the american experiment. Irving was an intellectual anchor of the conservative community. He advised president s and men toward a generation of young conservatives. He was also an optimist who defended the ideas that are at the heart of aei. Human dignity, free enterprise, order, liberty for all. Back in the darkest days of the cold war, irving was still a young publisher. His magazines were barely profitable. And with much of the world under the iron grip of communism and the soviet union and china it wouldve been hard to see how irving could play a major role in the fight for free enterprise. And yet, armed with these little magazines, he never lost hope. A Firm Believer in the power of ideas, irving was steadfast in his conviction that with a circulation of a few hundred, you could change the world. Today, our values are under attack. That is true. But like irving, i am an who optimist who believes that aeis ideas provide the roadmap for a confident, humane, and flourishing america. These ideas will not only endure, they will prevail. One reason for my confidence is todays honoree. Since joining aei, nick has been one of our most productive and influential scholars. He has changed how we think about issues as diverse as poverty, world hunger, global health, and the security challenges of the korean peninsula. Nick has been here so long it sometimes feels like hes been here his entire life but thats not true and i have proof. Here in the upper lefthand corner is a young nick lighting lining up with his Football Team at the Buckley School in new york. I dont know about all of you, but it gives me some joy to know that before nick turned his turn his attention for nick turned his attention before nick turned his attention to the great issues of our time, he spent a little time on the gridiron blocking and tackling and maybe even throwing a forward pass. And here, looking especially dashing, is nicks senior picture from exeter. The records tell us that nick was, not surprisingly, Student Council president , president of the Economics Club and the winner of the highest award in german and history. Sadly, he didnt continue his football exploits. Nick is a scholar with a moral compass. He is a demographer who never forgot that demography is not the study of human population. It is the study of human people and that has been the driving force of his careers work. Over the years, nick has had little time for those who dismiss the innate human inclinations of freedom. Instead, he has defended with both academic and moral clarity values. His work is imbued with a deeply self concern for the wellbeing of the most needy among us. In the 1990s, nick became a strong critic of chinas one child policy. Not only because he felt it was bad for chinas economy and politics, but because it was morally wrong. This speaks to a deeper courage that underlines all of nicks work. Nick has never been afraid to defy conventional wisdom. Leads to the conclusion that nick has found no fight too daunting. His intellectual rigor example files the very best qualities of our institute. Nick has always said that people are our greatest assets. And if thats true, Nick Eberstadt is aeis greatest asset. He is an ideal colleague, gracious and understanding. Nick is also an extraordinary mentor. He has cultivated an entire generation of scholars to carry on our important work. In that tradition following his lecture, we will be having a Panel Discussion on a new volume that compiles advice for the next president ial administration through several of our scholars. Nick has written a chapter for the book with the title, restoring americas promise. As many of you know, we have often given this award to Prime Ministers, Supreme Court justice, spiritual leaders as well as public intellectuals. And from time to time, we are lucky to be able to recognize one of our most exceptional scholars. So this is the part of the program where im supposed to puff out my chest and Say Something about how proud i am to present the Irving Kristol award to nick. But i have a better idea. A much better idea. Lets let the people who afford closestave work look over the years do the honors. The American Enterprise institute has honored itself and its ideals are presenting the Irving Kristol award to nicholas eberstadt. Nick is joining an aei pantheon that includes Ronald Reagan, bernard lewis, thomas soul, michael novak, jeane kirkpatrick, antonin scalia, charles murray, clarence thomas, and many other great thinkers and doers. And, of course, Irving Kristol himself, a friend and mentor to nick, whose brilliant insights into american politics and society shine brighter with every passing year. I couldnt be happier that honoree ofadt is the this years Irving Kristol lecture. Honorso deserving of the and epitomizes everything that is wonderful about aei. Everything i learned from Nick Eberstadt is so eye opening, everything from the roots of american poverty to Foreign Policy. He is one of the most original thinkers i have ever seen and met. Nicks work helped ignite a National Conversation from the state of the labor force america. Nick called attention to the impact of our failing culture on the welfare of working age man. Nick is a scholars scholar. Erudite but not pedantic, groundbreaking and deep, but always accessible, never boring. Like all great Public Policy work, his writing pointed to the promise of a better system, one that recognizes and rewards the dignity and longterm benefits of earned income. Nick eberstadt is a numbers guy with a moral compass as he has written. Demography is at the study of human numbers but it is the human characteristics of those numbers that define world events. Honestly, its a little a northhat god made him korea expert, a pompous call at an renaissance man into the same body. And most important, nicks is a family man in the best way. He adores his beautiful wife, his wonderful kids, he loves and cares for his aei family as his own. And he is, to put it deserving, unmentioned. A mensch. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 2020 Irving Kristol award recipient, Nick Eberstadt. Thank you, robert. This award is also a sentimental pleasure. At aei, i am what you call a lifer, still enjoying an external are of serving here at 35 years and counting. My debts of affection and gratitude to irving himself are immense. Not least, i might not have met mrs. Eberstadt if he had not hired her at the publicinterest magazine. Mary and i are just two of the aspiring young writers irving went out of his way to encourage over his long life. Like his remarkable wife, Irving Kristol is an unforgettable inspiration. I only wish everyone listening could have known them, too. Aei kristol lectures, like the boyer lectures that preceded them, wrestle with weight issues with weighty issues of the day. But its fair to say no one could have anticipated last year when this prize was awarded, the path on which we now find ourselves. So todays lecture could hardly avoid addressing our Current Crisis. Two very different paths for america lie before us at the end of the covid pandemic. One is to a future of stagnation and division. The other is to a future of revitalization and hope, and the choice is ours to make. I am going to argue we can grasp the future that includes National Unity and progress for all. It is entirely doable. We already pretty much know how. We just have to want it and not lose heart. My message is directed especially to younger americans, those of you who dont really remember our country before the Great Recession, before 9 11, before the spread of the new misery. You will be the ones in charge of the american experiment tomorrow, the ones who have to do most of the heavy lifting, in revitalizing our nation. Like your forbearers, you will learn firsthand americas amazing capacity to mend its flaws, improve and advance. We have a record of doing this again and again and again. For almost 250 years. Your country, your fellow citizens are worthy of your unalloyed devotion. Deserved, actually. Someday you will be able to tell your children why the american future is always worth the struggle. Now, my lecture. America is in the midst of its greatest crisis since the second world war. The Novel Coronavirus is a pathogen with which humanity has no previous experience. When we will create a safe and effective vaccine, and how many waves of contagion will roll through our country before covid subsides, are at present unanswerable questions. Under the pressure of the pandemic, fault lines in a our country have been painfully exposed. We endure not only a socioeconomic emergency, but an explosion of anger and radicalized violence in our streets. These troubles have historical roots, problems long festering and long ignored. Washington has responded to the pandemic with an unprecedented peace time mobilization of national resources. Congress has authorized trillions of dollars in spending to support distressed businesses and households, and the Federal Reserve system has committed trillions more with no end yet in sight. In relation to national income, todays state outlays for the covid crisis are comparable to our peak defense effort in world war ii. Just as in the second world war, we are now embarked upon an enormous expansion of government reach in public debt. Eventually, we will achieve our National Objective in the struggle against covid19. Victory in world war ii was followed by Rapid Military demobilization and wholesale dismantling of wartime economic controls. But what of the postpandemic era . How will we demobilize the super welfare state hastily thrown together to prop up shaky businesses and cover shortfalls in personal income . How will we renew Economic Growth so we might, among other things, cope with our vastly increased public debt . If we simply muddle through, we are likely to muddle into a nightmare, an american future defined by a new sociocorporate welfare state, a stagnant politicized economy, and deep Financial Dependence upon officialdom, both elected and otherwise. In such a future, democracy would be degraded, freedoms lost, divisions inflamed, tomorrows promise squandered. Were we to settle for such a future, we would be the americans who chose against exceptionalism, who decided that just being another sluggish, demoralized social democracy was good enough for us and for posterity. To steer away from this grave danger, we need a very different vision of the future. Such a vision for the rapidly down for moreild silent mobilization of the u. S. Government and its central bank. But simply restoring the precovid status quo ante is not held many of us would be willing not a hill many of us would be willing to die on. That was a world where the American Dream was already faltering, where too many americans, especially younger americans, were mired in a previously unfamiliar new misery. As a look beyond covid, we have the opportunity to repair americas prepandemic flaws. We should be seeking a social and economic revitalization of our nation, a bold and thorough overhaul of our public and private ways to spark a dynamic upswing and progress for everyone. Division, the design should be prosperity for all. This can be done, and a revitalized america is a prize worth fighting for. Lets start with the longrun implications of the Current Crisis. The bad news is that the pandemic has made the task of revitalizing our nation more difficult. But the good news is its also made the need for such revitalization more difficult to ignore. To prevent collapse of the u. S. Economy and Financial Systems during the nationwide covid lockdown, washington unleashed a tidal wave of public resources. With the economy in freefall, the impulse to act urgently and go big was surely the right call. Yet, urgency also met at the also meant that the single largest state surge in americas history was necessarily improvised. Not only by the intended consequences, but unintended, unconsidered ones. Government transfers now account for much more of the American Family budget than ever before. And will continue to for an indefinite duration. Since all the covid stimulus spending, public debt is soaring. To what heights is still anyones guess. We will certainly exceed world war ii debt ratios soon, and additional rounds of deficit spending may still lie in store. The Congressional Budget Office just projected that the federal debt would be almost twice the size of the u. S. Economy by 2050. 2. 5 times the prepandemic ratio. Apart from japan, virtually no country on earth grapples with such a debt burden today. However, the full dimensions of the governments new role in u. S. Economic life were not revealed by fiscal numbers alone. For those overlooked the item, important not only in magnitude but in nature. At the behest of congress and the treasury department, our Federal Reserve system has crossed a rubicon. With its new pandemic rescue mandates, the fed readies to the role of managing and even micromanaging the American Economy through credit allocation, potentially lending vast sums not only to financial institutions, but also directly to firms that judge suitable for government support. The fed already dominates the markets for u. S. Treasury debt and mortgage debt as a result of previous lesser crises. Its by no means inconceivable that the Current Crisis will propel it to a comparably dominant position in domestic commercial credit. These dramatic transformations of our economy, remember, are the intended consequences of our pandemic measures. But a host of unintended consequences are also embedded in these policies. They pose direct risks to American Freedom and prosperity the longer the measures remain in force. Consider the special 600 a week pandemic unemployment benefits. These came on top of existing unemployment benefits, regardless of ones wealth or income. The year before the crisis, about onethird of all jobs in the u. S. Were paying less than that 600 a week. When added to regular unemployment benefits, this push payments for the jobless above median wage level in 36 of the 50 states. Welcome to a job market which all men and women can get an above average salary, so long as they do not work. One study estimated spending by pandemic unemployment recipients was 10 higher after the onset of the crisis than before it. Pandemic benefits, in other words, could be a jackpot and you didnt actually have to be unemployed to take the bonus home. In september 2020, about 12 million americans were looking for work, but over twice that number were collecting some form of unemployment insurance. Fortunately, we can still rely on a widespread American Work ethic to resist disincentives dangling from pandemic packages. For the sake of the dreams our work ethic serves, lets try not to find out how powerful those bad incentives might be over the long run. Then theres the whole new realm of unintended consequences and in the fit mission to rescue the the fed mission to rescue the u. S. Economy. The fed has announced it would become a player in the corporate debt market and is preparing to lend directly to private concerns on highly favorable terms. Its rationale is that Financial Markets will not voluntarily dispense sufficient credit to u. S. Businesses on its own, a premise that is unfalsifiable, openended, and potentially selffulfilling. Leave aside the unavoidable and unavoidably corrupting politicization of the private sector that would occur when every big business wants to become a friend of the fed. And many will need to be. The nation itself promises to end in failure for the assignment is an exercise in adverse selection. The record of industrial policy in other parts of the world, europe, asia, latin america is littered with failures, often expensive ones. But at least in those other experiments, governments were attempting to pick winners. The feds mandate is to pick losers, Companies Whose debt is not of investment quality. We know already how this movie ends. With misallocation of capital on a massive scale, unnecessary destruction of wealth, ultimately weaker Economic Performance and slower growth. Easy money and low interest loans are procured at the expense of others, at your expense. And the longterm costs are greater than generally appreciated. Since the crash of 2008, for over a decade, the fed has mainly been enforcing near zero Interest Rates and theres now talk of keeping rates near zero for another seven years. That would make nearly two decades of mostly emergency monetary policy. The argument during the Great Recession was the fed should do everything to help businesses survive because they were so fragile. The completely unsurprising consequence of ultralow Interest Rates is a new breed of businesses that can only survive in the low interest environment. Such Zombie Companies scarcely existed 20 years ago, but by one estimate now account for nearly a fifth of all security is listed on u. S. Exchanges. Zombie companies, previously unimaginable levels of public superlowerending Interest Rates. Does any of this sound familiar . Yes. We have seen it all before. In japan during its ongoing lost generation of growth, a saga unfortunately now heading into its second generation. Before covid, japan had been creeping along for three decades on less than 1 a year growth and per capita output, a pace that takes nearly 80 years to double incomes. The specter of japanification is already haunting europe. Soon it could be coming to your town, too. Japanification was not a natural disaster. It was manmade, largely through use of inadequate reform and respond in the face of the major crisis, the bursting of the japanese financial bubble. Japan, you see, kept accepting excuses for extending special emergency budget and banking measures year after year. Should we create Something Like our own japanification, we may not fare as well under it as japan, for we were and are the beset by preexisting conditions that did not afflict the japanese. Now, lets take a look at those preexisting conditions. Though the need for revitalizing america is more pressing because of the pandemic, that imperative does not arise from the emergency itself. 40 years ago this month, Ronald Reagan concluded his campaign for the presidency with a penetrating question are you better off than you were four years ago . For america today, the question would be, are you better off than you were 40 years ago . If were being honest with ourselves, the unvarnished truth is that growing numbers of americans were not, even before the pandemic. Americas engines for material success and personal advance were already in need of serious repairs. Now, some will find this assessment preposterous. After all, a summary record of National Performance since the reagan years is a marvel. 30 years ago, we won the cold war and became the planets sole superpower, a title we still hold. Over that same period, we tripled our private wealth, adding almost 75 trillion of real net worth, nearly a quarter of a Million Dollars per american man, woman, and child. Even now, in the midst of the pandemic, stock markets are near alltime highs. Never before has the world seen a system that could generate so much power and prosperity. But during our unipolar moment, a strange new sickness was quietly eating away at our nation. For the most part, our elites, our deciders, prescribers, didnt notice. It wasnt affecting them or anyone they knew. But in the glare of our Current Crisis, that ailment can no longer be neglected. Call it the new misery, social affliction from americas second gilded age. Only a fabulous wealthy nation could sustain. Symptoms of the new misery abound, although our nation has never been so rich, never have so many been living on poverty benefits. Although health and longevity for young and middleaged parents are vastly better than in earlier times, never had so many children been living as if orphaned, with just a mother, just a father, sometimes just grandparents. Although our economy celebrated full employment on the eve of the pandemic, our work rate for prime age american men mirrored levels from the tail end of the great depression. And although our national net worth has been soaring for decades, net worth for households in the bottom half was actually lower when the pandemic hit than when the berlin wall fell 30 years earlier. No one can look at such results and claim that a rising tide was lifting all ships. But what accounts for these miserable contradictions . The conventional diagnosis is structural economic change in our age of globalization and technological disruption. There is truth here, but it is not the whole story or even most of the story. For modern america has become even more ensnared in a tangle of mythologies that predates the latest globalization. Many people are still in denial about this fact. Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase tangle of pathologies in his seminal report on the crisis of the black family in america. Moynihan warned that family breakdown and its ramifications , illegitimacy, absent fathers, welfare dependence, and more, were undermining social and economic progress for black americans and would limit the gains that civil rights reforms seemed to promise. The moynihan report got many things right, but we now know it was wrong on one critical point. Since he traced the crisis of the black family back to the sentries of injustice, africanamericans had withstood under slavery, subsequent institutional discrimination, and continuing racial prejudice, moynihan believed it was unique, an awful aberration, not a preview of the american future. Yet, far from constituting a tragic exception, the social turmoil that moynihan described proved to be prefiguration of trends in store for citizens with no such legacy of racebased mistreatment. Births out of marriage, family breakdown, and welfare depend on dependence are more common today nationwide than among black americans back when moynihan sounded the alarm. The tangle of pathologies is rampant now in yankee new hampshire, where a third of births are out of wedlock. One in four children live in a singleparent home, and 35 are being raised on poverty benefits. Even predominantly mormon utah is no longer immune to these pathologies. Nearly one baby in five in the beehive state is born to an unwed mother and a quarter of its children live in means tested homes. Crime likewise figures in our nationwide tangle. Eight black, one in men wasnt holding down a job. Last year, this supposedly booming economy, the corresponding rate for men of all ethnicities was even higher. Over 90 million American Adults , nearly three in eight, now have criminal arrest records. Yet, we dont pay much attention, and social pathologies go mainstream. Theres a temptation to normalize them by defining deviancy down. Another fateful moynihan insight. There were other ways we normalize some of this behavior. When postwar Economic Growth began its long slow down, america entered into a new social compact with the poor half of its people. Call it our modern declaration of dependence. In this ugly deal, we americans tried to buy social peace by underwriting improvements on how the other half lives. Through welfare and debt. No matter what they say or how they posture, both Political Parties are complicit in this arrangement, which is why it has continued for decades. The share85 and 2017, of americans in homes depending upon benefits more than doubled, and americas means tested citizenry nearly tripled. In effect, nearly all our population increased since the reagan era was of means tested americans. Welfare dependency in america has a new face. These programs are no longer just for Vulnerable Women and children. Grown men in the prime of life , traditionally societys providers, are now a major constituency for public aid. In 2017, over one in four prime age american men took poverty conditioned benefits, tripled from 1985. If we add in payments from our highly problematic disability programs, even more were on some form of government dole. Yet, in all the commentary on the endangered american middle class, rising welfare dependence is hardly ever mentioned. What a curious oversight. Plainly, middle class is defined not by a paygrade, but rather by a mentality. You could have low income and still consider yourself middleclass. But if you seek and accept Public Benefits eligible only to the poor, your membership in the middle class is in jeopardy, and you probably know it. As large portions of america became increasingly dependent on means tested public largess, such spending now averages around 6000 per recipient. Americans finances also grew strangely precarious. The numbers are shocking. Nearly three in eight American Homes today are rentals. Most are too near a hand to mouth existence. In 2019, half of all renters had a net worth of under 6000. Over half of ranking seniors had less than 7000 to their name. Nearly half of all femaleheaded renter families had less than 2000 in net worth. Whether renters or half saws, the lower its mean net worth fall between six, or even by a more, depending on which measure of inflation one prefers. Swellingecades of national wealth, these americans are far more leveraged today than in the reagan era. Personal debts and loans have eaten away their net worth. To make matters worse, American Voters dont want to pay for the means tested benefits bolstering recipients living standards, so weve been borrowing money to cover them. Actually, this is true for all our social entitlement programs. Not just those earmarked for those willing to call themselves poor. That is the meaning of the past four decades of near continuous budget deficits, of the unprecedented run up in peacetime public debt in the era when transfer payments came to dominate our public finances. Since public debts are taxes postponed, we are consuming entitlements we are unwilling to pay for, and instead taxing future workers for them, including workers not yet born. The fecklessness of our deluge keynesianism was perhaps most nakedly revealed in our last budget before the pandemic when washington ran a deficit of nearly 1 trillion at the top of the business cycle. Our social innovation and echo infinances find an the national economy. Dynamism seems to be steadily ebbing. True, americas top corporations are still world leaders, the envy of regulators in other lands. These giant gladiators cast a long shadow. Maybe that is why we dont always notice what is going on in the rest of the private arena. Simply put, there is less Creative Destruction, the lifeblood of free enterprise, the ratio of new startups to existing businesses has been falling for over 40 years. Accompanying the decline of garage entrepreneurship has been a continuing drop in labor market churn, switching jobs. Quits are down, too. While that may sound good, its partly a vote of noconfidence in opportunities elsewhere. Structurally, American Business is increasingly gray and topheavy, dominated by older, larger corporations with easy access to capital at rates Small Businesses cant obtain, and aided by fixers and regulatory conciliatory little firms cant afford. We see increasing market concentration and decreasing knowledge diffusion. More laggards falling behind on the learning curve. This is not a recipe for improved productivity. It should not surprise that our decade of growth after the Great Recession was the weakest snapback ever recorded. As we look beyond covid, work Growth Prospects are not so auspicious. Warning lights are both social and institutional. Economic progress in the modern economy depends on Human Resources and Business Climate. Yet over the past generation, despite our renowned and unaccountably expensive healthcare system, weve eked out barely one extra year of Life Expectancy per decade with some slight decline since 2014 partly because of americas unpredicted opioid crisis. After leading the world in educational advance for a century and more following the civil war, americas progress and attainment suddenly through a gear. For over a generation its been just limping along as others surpass us in mean years of education. It is hard to argue that americas Business Climate has improved in the 21st century. Tax cuts notwithstanding, many indicators show some drop in americas quality of institutions and policies over the past two decades. Unless we change these trends, post Covid America is in danger of distinctly slower Economic Growth than we are as yet accustomed to, even as public debt looms. We could find ourselves closer and closer to our own japanification, one more unpleasant than the original. If we are to redeem the promise of the american future, we need to prepare right now to achieve escape velocity from a future of stagnation, dependence, and division. In some, the problems facing our country today are serious. Describing them closely, however, does not make them hopeless. No. It details what we need to fix, repair, and improve. A revitalized america is ours for the asking. The burden of revitalizing our nation will fall mainly on the shoulders of todays younger americans, so i would like a word with you, please. You arrived at a surprisingly unsettled juncture in our National History and your American Experience has been an important respect unlike any before. Youve inherited our american sense of fair play with grownups seeing too much that violates it. Youve watched too often as people calling the shots seem to place your interests, the interests of our common future, last. You see people who should be protecting others instead gaming the system for themselves. You are connected to everything, but you are so isolated. You resonate with irony, but irony doesnt fill that place where meaning and purpose are supposed to go. Our culture, our society, our nation, none of these asks enough of you. What i have in mind for you is a big ask, a world changing ask. The National Renewal of a great country that needs you. I dont have a plan to show you,. A plan wont bring our fractured nation together for a common purpose. We need vision. The vision right now of where we want to take our nation tomorrow. We must envision a more dynamic , rapidly advancing and selfreliant america, an america that can generate prosperity for all, an america with both more freedom and stronger families and communities than present. An america in which our citizens are Less Beholden to and vandalizing handouts, more fully in charge of the own of their own pursuit of happiness. The arithmetic of american revitalization depends first and foremost on a broad consisting a broad sustained upswing of national productivity. The springboard for rising living standards. Reversing our anemic performance is crucial to instilling the confidence that will help dispel the new misery. Its important to recognize that we already know much of what has to be done. We need more and Better Research both public and private, from defense to infrastructure to climate. Scientific advances and breakthroughs make the pressing task before us a little easier. Like any resource, funds for research and development can be used unwisely. But in a revitalizing america, we would be investing much more heavily in this aspect of americas future. Israel, south korea, taiwan, sweden, all devote more of their economies to r d. We used to lead the world here. We should want to again. We need more and better education and training, much more. Had we only maintained our former temple of progress, americas working age population would have nearly two additional years of schooling today, even more for younger adults. This shortfall has lowered current u. S. Output by trillions of dollars a year, and skewed the distribution of opportunities unforgiving lee. In what economists call americas race between technology and education, lagging education makes for labor displacement with lagging wages for the less skilled to boot. Should we really be surprised by whats happened to our nations employment and earnings profiles since our great slowdown in educational progress . More and better education will make for more work and better wages. Increased opportunity and the return of that welcome and invigorating churn. Americas other big innovation problem is the sclerosis, complacency, and rent sinking in our private sector, especially in big business. America cannot succeed unless a lot of its firms fail including its largest ones. Bankruptcy and reallocation of resources to more productive ends are the mothers milk of Dynamic Growth and competitive markets. They should be no room for corporate welfare in a revitalized america. Bring on the corporate zombie apocalypse. America will thrive from it. Lets also save some Creative Destruction for the increasingly essential but bloated government dominated sectors, health and education. Dependency for mens helplessness and incapacity, wastes Human Potential and kills dreams. A revitalize america must offer a pathway from dependency back to selfreliance. This will be easiest with Dynamic Growth but in any case will require rethinking our sprawling, largely dysfunctional social welfare system. To the fullest extent possible, social welfare arrangements should be reconfigured on a work first principle with active employment or job seeking conditioning other benefits. You know what is so great about work . It is service for others but also helps complete you. Most old americans know this and thanks to healthy aging, a horizon for such service are wider than ever before. Of course, a host of unintended consequences could attend subsidizing employment. So introducing a work first principle bears careful consideration and will unavoidably create problems on its own. But pursued correctly, we are likely to be trading a set of problems for decidedly smaller set. This brings us to demography, the vital factor that makes that may spare us the plight of the shrinking atomized society. The two most important demographic questions for a revitalized america concern family and immigration. Some truths about the family for so obvious it would take an expert to miss them. Family is the basic Building Block of society and nation, so the health of our country depends on the health of our families. Without presuming the solomonic wisdom to judge any Single Family situation or circumstance, we can confidently prefer intact families, greater numbers of lasting committed marriages. Fewer children born within marriage, more time at home, not less for parents and children. We also know that bonds of kinship are the first and still strongest safety net our species has developed. Weak and fractured families spohn welfare systems, and we have learned through sad experience that the state is a highly imperfect substitute for the father, and impossible substitute for the mother. Family revival would powerfully buttressed national revival. It will come on its own organic schedule, abetted by recovered social wisdom, and maybe one of those great awakenings to which america seem so providentially prone. Government can shear this can cheer this project on and amend its own antifamily bias, but ultimately this is a project for the american heart. Immigration has been a great defining blessing for our nation. Current and future immigrants will play an Important Role in revitalizing america. People who risked everything to come to our country to start a new life and body the american in body the american spirit. Embody the american spirit. Thats what immigrants generally make such fine americans. Our american creed seems especially suited to molding newcomers into loyal and productive citizens. There is an argument for favoring highly skilled immigrants in the future, and it has merit. But the grid and ambition and family values of immigrants with little formal education should have a place in our country, too. Talent and entrepreneurial drive do not always arrive with academic credentials. That said, immigration, like globalization, must work for americans, not the other way around. Our National Sovereignty is nonnegotiable. We americans get to choose who is invited to our land. No one else. My own preference is for fairly high immigration quotas, but whatever the level, immigration should be legal immigration. Illegal immigration is not only an affront to our rule of law, it is an affront to our democracy because it circumvents the will of the people. Americas immigration process is badly broken, so let us americans fix it. A key indicator of our National Revitalization will be wealth trends for the bottom half of our country. We should want to see their net worth growing. In fact, growing a good deal faster than with the country as a whole. And by wealth, i mean private assets in their own immediate possession, things like bank accounts, homes, college funds, 401 k s. Economists can make the case that payouts from our National Social insurance system, Social Security, should be counted as personal wealth. Theoretically, this is an unassailable argument, but some take this to mean we shouldnt worry too much about tangible private assets for the less welltodo. If we took that logic to its conclusion, we would be counting the valve of future footstep use foodstamp use as well, too. Theres a world of difference between a monthly check from the government and the financial stake you put together for through managing your own affairs. A freed people deserve better than life on allowance money and a debit card. A revitalize america can provide a revitalized america can provide the framework of which anyone can build their own wealth, with the help of more work, better wages, and constantly improving opportunities and skills. But personal responsibility is the other element. Establishing credit worthiness is up to you. Financial discipline, thrift and other money habits determine a familys savings, consistently accumulate savings with the basis of personal wealth and economic freedom. As a practical matter, family stability is central a Household Wealth prospects. The struggle to save and get ahead is so much harder in homes with just one parent. And even in a revitalize america that reality is not going to change. Our government will need to discipline its budget, too. Unlike keynes, who argued government should run surpluses in good times to balance out deficits in bad times, we find an excuse every year to spend more than we bring in. Treat each and every year as an emergency for the federal budget and the excuse will become a prophecy. The path to japanification is paved with super high deficits and super low Interest Rates. And revitalize america, ours will be a future positive Interest Rates and low budget deficits. Taxes will have to be higher, too, at least for a generation. Since in a revitalized america we will cease spending our childrens inheritance, but future generations will bless us for this. And if we obtain Dynamic Growth, the tax bite shouldnt smart quite as much. In modern times, affluent democracies that undertake farreaching reforms usually do so only after their governments face forcing crises. In the famous thatcherism run thatcherism, run out of other peoples money. America does not yet have that luxury. We are backstopped by over 100 trillion in private wealth, plus the prerequisites of printing the worlds currency. Independence, our freedom, means no one else is going to make us carry out the farreaching , initially painful tests of tasks of revitalization. So fruit selfreliance means revitalization, to hunger for it, and to accomplish it all by ourselves. Why do it before our backs are to the wall and is no remaining margin for error . Theres a magnificent american future ahead just waiting to be built. Lets get to work. The entire aei Community Joins me in congratulating doctor Nick Eberstadt as the 2020 winner of the Irving Kristol award. Now, please join us back here at 1 05 p. M. For the president ial priorities panel. Hello, everyone. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this second phase of our conversation this afternoon. Following up on Nick Eberstadts lecture with the state of our country and its prospects in a year that has seen more than a its share of unexpected turns. His lecture will be a starting point for our conversation, and the other will be the simple fact that we are less than a month away from a president ial election. The person who takes the oath of office in january will face extraordinary challenges, both those created by the pandemic, many of which nick just discussed, and those that have been building long before it and require action. That person will also confront unusual opportunities in this strange moment. To help the president think about those opportunities, how to prioritize them, how to approach them, aei has been engaged in a special project. Our president has been able to ask scholars to offer advice to the president who takes the oath next year, before we know who that is going to be, while the Election Campaign is still roaring in the background. That means they need to think about what advice toabout what t to donald trump or joe biden, but to americas president. They have to consider not the goals of the republican or democrat but the needs of a nation. Principles are free, they keep us prosperous and strong by defending the constitution, the market economy, the integrity of the institution, but by offering advice about how the president can advance these causes before we know who will win this years election, our scholars will have to consider what issues, challenges, priorities really should matter most and how all americans should think about this. The result of that effort is articles, and you can find it online at priorities. Aei. Org. You can read the essays or download the entire book. Nick ebertstadts speech tol be in the book, too, how revitalize our governing institutions, approach entitlements, taxes, how to help our cities recover, how to think about the Administrative State and respond to the liberal radicalism we have seen in the streets this year and more. Two unpack some of that advice and think about the lessons of nick ebertstadts remarks just now, too, i am joined for a conversation by three of the other authors of chapters in that book, to strengthen our country and respond. Michael strain is director of Economic Policy at aei. Director ofis foreign and defense policy studies, and ryan streeter is director of domestic policy studies. We will start the discussions among is about the peculiar moments our country is facing, and we will open it up to all of you to ask some questions and drive our conversations. There are two ways you compose questions for our panel. If you are watching is on the aei livestream, you can submit your questions on the q a box next to the livestream on the event page, or else you can email your questions to dev events aei. Org. Ryan, thank you all for getting together. I would like to ask you to nicks a bit on remarks, and whoever the president will be who takes the oath next year, there is an enormous amount for us to reflect on anybody who is crazy enough to want to be president in 2021. Michael strain, i wasnt start with you. Nick was not cheerful, lets say come about the immediate economic prospect of our society, he is very worried about the capacity of the economy to recover. That is also the subject you take up in your chapter of the new book, and you offer some concrete advice. How do you think about that question now, given the year that we have had . Where is the economy stand, how should the president approach it next year . Thank everybody for joining this Panel Discussion. You know, i like to conceptualize where the economy has been and where it is going by thinking about a journey from catastrophelevel , severe recession to a weak economy, and then to a healthy economy, and we were in a depressionlevel disaster in march and april. We had the Unemployment Rate above 14 , and poverty measure close to 20 . A negative 1 3, the economy shrank at about 1 3 at an annual rate, household consumptions plunged, exports fell, the economy was in terrible shape. To give this some perspective, it took about two years for the Unemployment Rate to double from 10 in theeak of Great Recession, which began with the 2008 financial crisis. Ita pandemic recession, increased by over a factor of four in just two months, so this was a real disaster. We have left the kind of depression phase of this episode, and we left it a lot quicker than i think many economists thought was possible. So we are now in a bad recession , but we are in territory that is much more familiar, and, in some ways, that is a comforting place to be, because, again, we were in such bad shape not so long ago. I think the next president , regardless of who he is, needs to come up first and foremost, avoid doing things that will make the recovery slower and that will thwart progress. So we should not be raising taxes. We should especially not be raising the Corporate Tax rate, which would hurt businesses and worker productivity and wages. That should be item number one to avoid. We should not be doing things that will slow the process. We to get to a healthy economy, we are going to need for some industries to shrink, for other industries to expand. In order for that to happen, we will need workers and capital to flow from a shrinking industries to the expanding industries. Morexample, we do not need Movie Theater workers, but we likely need more amazon delivery drivers. We should not be doing things to come up the work of that reallocation assets, and i am worried about some of the lessees that might just some of that direction. Thingstion to not doing wrong and not getting in the way, we need to continue to provide support to businesses, provide support to others. There are a lot of things we should do, and the next president should have his hands full. Yuval thanks, michael. In the economic sphere, as mike suggests, this is a moment of intense urgency and focus. In world affairs, it is a little less clear exactly where is the focus. In some ways, this pandemic has put National Relations on hold, but it has also exacerbated some very serious albums that we face. In should the president , 2021, think about americas role in the world and the challenges of running a Foreign Policy . Kori well, first and foremost, until we have a Pandemic Recovery plan that americans are going to feel comfortable and confident with, they are not going to care about what else is happening in the world, and so the first thing a president needs to do a president of either party needs to do is have a plan that reassures america that the future is manageable for them, because it is a way to than caring about chinese aggressiveness, the war china started on the border with india, the degradations in the south china sea, concerns about what russia and turkey are doing. These are all important questions for Americas National security or challenges to Americas National security. But for the totally understandable reason, americans are not going to care until the major thing that has adjusted all of our lives is front and center in american policy. There are also looming longerterm concerns that because of the pandemic, we are not going to be paying attention to. Foremost is getting americas debt on a longterm, sustainable footing. And that is not an argument against pandemic stimulus spending absolutely not but it is an argument that, by 2024, americas debt is going to be larger than the defense budget, and is not addressed over time, it is going to crowd out all discretionary spending, including defense policy spending, and what needs to be our debt, our longerterm trajectory that is a sustainable will have enormous consequences if we do not deal with it pretty soon. Those kinds of longerterm challenges, thinking about how to iron out our apology for managing, and aggressive china, making better use of our alliance relationships. Those things are longerterm also only, but we are a few good choices away from the United States being vital and vibrant in its domestic Foreign Policy. Yuval hmm. In reflecting a little bit about what makes said, what nick said, our domestic policies these days often break down against the lines of culture, identity, but also city and country, which i think was implicit in makes remarks and his focus. He devoted a lot of attention to rural america, suburban america. Argue in your own chapter of the governing priorities collection that we need to think cities, without which is broader volatilization not really possible, and it is important to understand the ways in which American Cities are important to vitality. How would you approach that if you were advising the president in 2021 . , yuval. Ank you, it is important to think about societyeagues and geographically. In an age of populism, when politics is also kind of taught, it is maybe not important to talk about cities, but the blunt fact is that they really are essential to our economy and to our culture. One percent of counties in america account for about one third of gdp and onefifth of our population. The vast majority of patents are produced in urban areas as well as entrepreneurial activity. Cities continue to be important, and it is not healthy, i think, to pit metropolitan america against heartland america. Rather, i think we need to find ways to bring them together in meaningful ways, and i will have more to say about that in a minute. So i think it is important to note right now, and there has been a lot of commentary about people fleeing the citys right now, especially in the pandemic and in the wake of urban unrest, but these cities are often talked about, new york, chicago, los angeles. People have been leaving these cities for quite a while anyway. The situation that we have gone through this summer and over the last few months has probably celebrated that. But when people are moving every enduring this era of covid, it is for the usual reasons jobs, family, opportunity and a lot of people have been moving away from the cities for some time. Where have they been going . When you look at where people are actually going to, you can start to derive the basic workings of a policy agenda for cities going forward. People have been leaving these large cities, the famous ones where movies are made, for some time, for places that are more affordable, places that have more reliable structure, better schools, and provide the kind of safety that people are often looking for. Stool the three legged that is still written about helpful here. Successful cities have always been animated by commerce. They have provided safety and projected power, and they have also had a strong sense of place. And i think that people are generally looking for these things. If you look over the last 10 years at the Fastest Growing cities in america by population, it is places like seattle, austin, denver, charlotte, fort worth. These are places where people are moving for some of the reasons that i just talked about. Just raw numbers over the past decade, san antonio has added more population than los angeles has, and fort worth has added more than new york has. People are looking for the kind of stability, safety, portability, and in the mix of opportunity that those places bring. It is also worth noting that, you know, as people move from one place to another, they are not just moving from one large city like new york to place like nashville or austin. They are also moving from outlying counties near metropolitan areas. So we have this phenomena where people are leaving more dysfunctional places for those functioning cities and also people leaving more stagnating places in the hinterland for cities as well, and they generally tend to be moving to these places that provide that mix of basics, that a lot of these places get right. Even whatever the politics might become eight is worth noting that the top 10 destinations for millennial movers over the past 10 years have been places without an income tax. So people are making decisions for these very sort of basic reasons, and it is worth pointing that out right now, because we have seen this growth in urban dysfunction, particularly in strongholds of progressivism in our cities. In our last generation, there has been quite a shift when you look at just inequality in our cities. When you go to the 1980s and you look at the most unequal cities in america, only two major metros make the list, places that have over one million people, and that was new orleans and orlando. The rest are smaller, about half of which are in the south. When you fastforward to today, the most ungrateful cities unequal cities, you see that all the familiar places show up on the list san jose, san francisco, los angeles, new york, washington, d. C. We see this move toward greater inequality, really in class terms now, might have been more displayed by race even a generation ago, and these are not particularly strongholds of progressivism. Making more of an ideological observation that a partisan one, because a lot of the cities people are moving to are governed by democrats, but they have more political competition, usually, at the state and sometimes local level. In sort of tempers ideological settings were more classic policies, like making housing more affordable that attract people to those places. There is an interesting gauge of political competition i should mention, that there has been a partisan shift in the last 20 is worth pointing out. You have 16 mayors and democrats of those cities, three are republicans, and one is an independent here does very same 20 cities in 1995 had 10 democrats and 10 republicans, so you have seen a political shift away from dominance, and that is probably related to why we have seen, i think, the better days of even conservative policy thinking on cities kind of being a while ago. When you look back to the first half of the 1990s, anything between 1991 and 1996, you have really the last time we had a the of domestic policy first voucher program, Public School program, Public Housing reform on a massive scale. Policing is kind of a national project, and then of course welfare reform in 1996. These reforms were done by democrats. They were pushed by mayors and governors of both parties, but it was a time when brian the politic politician when i conversationitical of the day was different. There is a need for policymakers to think about what it means for cities. I get into that a little bit in my chapter. Bigling this is a really deal. The responsibility for the inequality we see in the cities i mentioned is really because of local dynamics and the kind of aban overlords and even strong proponent of federalism, like myself, would now embrace several policies in that regard, in terms of tying federal funds to the way in which cities are actually freeing up their housing policy, so we can have more housing at better prices. I think we need to relearn the lessons of community policing. I think this is a time to celebrate school reform. I know everyone is tired of sitting at home and wants to get back in school, but this is a time when microschooling, hybrid homeschooling, new ideas like giving charters the options to teach in Public Schools, this is a time for education in our cities to match the diversity of the city. Ideas,ut a few other like using the charter city concept domestically to create more flexibility for cities to address a wide range of concerns that are better for their growth and safety. And then also the idea of introducing new Regional Strategies to connect kind of outlying areas to their metropolitan center. So all to say i think there is a lot of hope in our cities that we have not been seeing lately because of all of the problems and the unrest. People are showing cities are the terrible places by the way in which we move into the. We have been focusing the last few months on what is wrong, but we have not been spending a lot of time looking at the places where people have gone, and theres a lot that is right in those places, a lot that helps us understand what people actually want from their leaders and their country, and i think we can invoke a good policy agenda with the next president in cooperation with governors and mayors can put together a pretty good agenda on the front to really kind of overcome some of the stasis that has overtaken some of our cities, and also get rid of some of the barriers that have prohibited growth there. Yuval thank you, ryan. One of the things you bring up, it is also the theme of nicks remarks, ultimately the driver of change has to be a change of Public Attitudes. In a democracy, you do not get anywhere without Public Opinion you. D for those of us who want to improve things, there is a real question about what the public is willing to accept and champion and adopt now. And where public views of our politics really are, which would for to be a challenge anyone politics and certainly for anyone who wants to be our president next year, there are ways that the theories each of you brings to the table intersect, but ,kori, i will start with you, there is a careless isolationism, looking at what the last 20 years are about, at least people thinking we have got to stay out of this stuff, without giving much thought to what americas role in the world ought to be and what the costss are of changing and some dramatic way. Stressing the need for Global Engagement now, how do you make that cage for an engaged america, given the sheer exhaustion that people feel in our politics these days . Kori it is a great challenge, yuval, and you are right that the public has no large appetite undertakings in foreign or defense policy. But it is actually not a hard case for american leaders to make. Much easier for american leaders leaders of anyr other country, but americans are outward looking, and americans care. There was an article in the Financial Times yesterday about how the Prime Minister of zambia was back against china, trying to create preferential treatment for chinese stateowned companies to have their debts repaid. The is a violation of International Monetary funds rules for repaying debtors. And it is a small example, but it example fights two things. Chinese,e way that a indoctrinated International Order would be very different from the american order that was created after 1945, and second, notthe americanled is actually a burden for americans to sustain, because it is so beneficial to others that they exist in it. Zambia isat challenging chinas ability to create a different kind of rules for the order. Of that is a great secret american success. It is actually not a very hard sell tomato americans that the current order is beneficial for security and our prosperity. We built it that way. You will not like what follows that if the United States does not remain on stage, work with our friends and allies to sustain, to prevent russia or china or others who do not share our interests and do not share our values from changing the order into something less beneficial for us and less prosperous for us. Mike, if we are on the subject of important possibility that would be hard to argue for, we should talk about deficits and debt. Apreta,ling, tim coo has a chapter in the book, about what forms of entitlement reform , but i wonder how you would give the argument for entitlement reform. It seems like it has been abandoned by both parties, maybe the only issue that we have seen is we should not pay any attention to entitlement. How would you advise a president who would want to take that up in a responsible way . Where would you start . Michael i think you start by acknowledging that economists have updated their views, i think, on how much debt the United States can carry, and by acknowledging that a lot of the concern that was voice after the financial crisis and Great Recession and the policy response to that, that there would be some sort of a greek style debt crisis, you know, did not come to fruition. Conceivingof this of the debt as a problem that is akin to a bear at your front door that is going to charge into your house and hurt you and your family, i think, is not the way way to conceive of it. Instead, it is more of a problem of termites in the foundation of your house. It is not going to get you one day. ,nstead, over a period of time it is going to gradually weaken the foundation of your house, and, you know, stretching the analogy maybe too far, we can bang the foundation of the economy. I think making that case in that way is both more accurate from an Economic Perspective and also, i think, might sound more plausible to a skeptical public. It admits a certain kind of policy response. What we need to do is put the trajectory of the jet to gdp going to inflect it from up, to have it be going down. Year 2023track by the debttogdparger ratio than any other time in history, and it is going to go up and up and up. That is bad. Continueot mean we can to accumulate massive amounts of debt and that it will not have an inbound on our economy. It will pit it will reduce investments, productivity, workers rages. Is right, that it is a threat to national security. There is also risk of a crisis. There is always a risk of inflation. It is a problem that needs to be solved, but the way to solve it is by making changes to our entitlement programs, especially Social Security and medicare, to the structure of our tax revenue , so that small changes today can kind of accumulate into large changes in debt projections and can allow the debt to still be large but be shrinking rather than growing. This is a major problem. This is one of the major problems facing the United States. It is not a problem that is going to, you know, set the house on fire tomorrow, but the sooner we start tackling it, and i believe the next president should start tackling it immediately. Ryan, if we are thinking about Public Opinion, one underlying challenge to take on any kinds of these questions as policymakers is how to deal with nse simple fact of the inte polarization of our political culture now. How to deal with that, it is impressive, the subject of my own chapter in the book, which talks a little but about political and institutional reform, but how should we understand that polarization itself . What do we know about how americans think about each other across party lines at this point . Maybe tell us a little bit about the work aei is doing to think about Public Opinion more generally and build on many years of work of struggling with the bowman and others that we are now developing into a real center on Public Opinion. Ryan it is a great question, yuval. The short answer is, yes, we are very polarized on merit questions. If you asked a question, people would be upset if a child came home dating a trump supporter or a trump opponent, temperatures really flare, and they express that two posters and Public Opinion researchers. So, yes, if all youre doing is surveying peoples Political Attitudes right now, you will see it is much more polarized than it was a generation ago. One of the reasons that we started the center on American Life here at aei, to look at a much more granular way, not to exclude policies, but look at what you are actually doing. You discover that there are a lot of things that tie us together still, despite the fact that you see many of these things that nick referred to that are disturbing, in terms of trends within household, community, faith all of these things are real. At the same time, when you look at things that are going on at the community level, you will find that there is still some really strong confidence in what i would call a range of american institutions. We find that the American Dream is still alive. Mike has written an entire book about this. Our survey work shows that for most americans in every democratic category, people still believe that you can get ahead and have a better life, however you define that in this country, and we also find that people are really animated by visions of the American Dream that has to do with having a Strong Family life and be able to enjoy your freedom, not just having a home in a higher income than your parents did. I think there is a lot of confidence in that. People still remain confident in their local leaders, even though they have lost trust in national leaders, and people derive a strong identity from the community than they do th political ideology. There are a lot of things that tie people together where they are. Opposition is not quite as vicious as it is on twitter and nationally, and i think there is a lot we can learn from that and take some help from some of the things we are finding and just ask people about what they spend their time thinking about, what they spend their time doing, and outlookffects their on america. I think there is a lot more out there than what the media cover and those of us in the chattering classes like to talk about. Yuval i want to remind folks we will start to turn to questions in a few minutes. You can pose a question right in the q a box, if you are watching is on the life stream, or you can email us at dev events aei. Org. One of the things that nick talked about was the important distinction of changes that have been brought about by the pandemic that will pass with the crisis and maybe changes that have been revealed by the pandemic that are here to stay and will transform American Life in some enduring ways, that things will never be as they were before. Kori, i wonder how you think about the u. S. China relationship in that context. More to the point, how the president should think about it in 2021. Did the experience of the change it, and beyond that, we have hardened our sense of china as an adversary, and is that you here to stay, and should it be . Kori i do think that view is here to stay, and i do think it should be, because what has changed not just american, but International Attitudes about china is the Chinese Governments behavior. Pandemic, bute the pandemic really cast a bright spotlight on the unreliability of Chinese Government information on the willingness of the Chinese Government to put their own population at risk, and international populations at the, in order not to admit mistakes that they are making, that predatory nature of chinese behavior, you know, just since the pandemic started, china has lashed out militarily towards india, towards several other and chinese behavior has been moving that way since at least xi jinping consolidated power. But, for example, dan blumenthal, zach cooper here at aei, excellent china experts, argue that it happened earlier than that. And the great thing about american policy toward china is that we created an opportunity to thena to opt in prosperity of the existing order, and we held that stakeholder possibility open for a very long time, nearly two decades, until china demonstrated that not only does it want something different, but it wants to change the rules and the institutions of the International Order in order to dominate it in ways that the United States does not favor, European Countries do not favor, countries everywhere do not favor. The only thing i think that has different ack policy that contains china more overtly by the United States and other countries is that, to some extent, we have lost faith that our values are universal, that Everyone Wants the privileges on the liberty that americans have demanded and secured for themselves, and put the rise of dangerousertive and china is reminding europeans, africans, latin americans, and thats, is that the truths we hold to be self evidence are not just american truths, and this Chinese Government poses a threat to them, that all of us need to hold hands and find creative ways to counter. Yuval thank you. Mike, a related question in your domain. The pandemic and the response to it certainly had the economy like a northlake, but what lasts hit the economy like an earthquake, but what lasts from this pandemic, crisis measures that will be gone when it is over and we will be back when we started . Michael my excitation is that Economic Policy will look pretty similar after the pandemic as it did before. Most of the governments major responses to the pandemic have already expired. The 600 federal supplement to standard stateprovided on employment but if its expired in late july. The Paycheck Protection Program expired in early august. The two think, where big things the government did, the direct checks to household were mailed out. We have not done that again. The fed is taking extra ordinary actions, but they are doing a lot of what they had done in the wake of the financial crisis in truly x ordinary measures that the fed took subsided last time. I suspect that they will this time as well. You know, the economy, i think, could look different, but of course the economy is always changing. This might be the final blow, toie theaters will be able sustain. It may be that people are more comfortable and more used to online shopping. We have home deliveries. We may see that Movie Theater sector shrink. We may see the Home Delivery sectors expand. With those types of expansions and contractions happen all the time. It may be that people like outdoor dining, and restaurants do more of that. Again, that is just the standard process of suggesting that ,hanging consumer taste successful businesses engage in. I do expect to see, you know, some changes. A lot of people used to wake up in new york or washington on monday morning and fly to los angeles for a oneour meeting and fly back, you know, may just do that over zoom, you know, so i would expect to see, you know, marginal less Business Travel. I do not think Business Travel is a thing of the past, but, you know, we saw a 10 reduction in Business Travel, a 10 increase in working from home. These sorts of marginal changes would not surprise me, but i expect that the economy would kind of put this in the Rearview Mirror and get back to what it was doing. N, obviously the pandemic has had a transformative effect on how americans live their lives more generally. What do you think has changed about the american way of life over the past seven months that may not go back so easily, whether in Higher Education and peoples choices about where to live, other arenas within your domain, where it seems like what we have lived through is going to be a change for the duration. I have a lot of confidence in people to kind of go back to the lives that they were leading, not that i am just rooting for, you know, normalcy again. But i do think that, depending on how long it takes for us to have the effective medical interventions that we are all kind of hoping for, things could actually snap back more quickly. I think when things could land on the policy domestic landscape, where they could be changing, teeing off on some of my comments earlier, i think we have seen, leading up to the pandemic, kind of a growing awareness of the role of local leaders and driving up the costs of housing and making life affordable in some of our cities. And i think 20 years ago, when you sit here in washington, d. C. And have a discussion about the cost of housing, it always returns to subsidies. That has been changing in the last 10 years as people look at the the rules are looking at the way the rules are written is pricing some people out. I think what we have seen, kind of the unrest in our cities, it is shining a brighter light on kind of the culpability of the leaders at the local level. There is a tendency for a lot of urban leaders to constantly cast about for national culprits that are actually under their jurisdiction to control, whether it is the police, the cost of housing, the quality of their schools. I think after this pandemic and then the unrest that we saw this summer, following the killing of george floyd, that we now have a brighter light on who is responsible for that stuff. I think that opens up the door for some creative maneuvering when it comes to policy. I also think on the Primary School front, there are some changes here as well. I think some of the great resource that some of our education scholars are doing at aei, tracking what School District doing overtime would be useful, and i think we will see some disparities emerge that will, again, shine a light on what the equality and place on some of these School District play and children having some serious learning decline in some places and other places that they did just fine. I think it will raise a lot of questions about School Policy at that level. As you mentioned lastly, and i will wrap up, as i do think Higher Education has been sort of prime for disruption. Starting. Eady been we have been talking about this for a couple of years, watching these problems we have had with the cost of Higher Education and then the outcomes of Higher Education. Now that people have been doing, you know, Remote College life now for a full while, we are going to see some of these kind kind ofing universities really struggle to square the circle now, where they have been able to get away with costs, and i think it will be harder for them to do that afterwards. It is going to be a landscape of a lot of disruption. Me drop some of the themes that are appearing in some of our audience questions. Beyond the pandemic, the past few months have seen some very disturbing signs of radicalization in American Life. Protests that began as a response to police abuse and quickly escalated, in some places, into riots that have turned out to be, in some respects, connected to a broader movement, to portray o american history, closing off freedom of inquiry on campuses, clearly spreading beyond campuses. In essence, we are seeing a struggle over our countrys core identity and moral purpose. Thinki wonder how you about that. You ended up on higher ed, and it is somewhat centered on higher ad, but it has spread upon it. How serious is the risk, what might be done about it . Is there a role for the president of the United States and other policymakers really doing anything about this challenge . Yeah, i mean, i am concerned about the things you mention, and since you mentioned higher ed, we have a reason to onconcerned about climate our campuses, exactly the opposite of what we should be doing on University Campuses. I was eight is a uniquely american phenomenon, too. You see some of this and other countries but not to that extent , and i am still puzzling over why that is to die do think american universities have overspent on beefing up the non educational conditions, beefing the unrest,e on which you do not really see across the pond, and u. K. Coming to the grievant we have here to the degree that we have here. I think the role of the president is probably limited, but the president could talk about these things and callout hypocrisy where he sees it. Look at other creative ways for federal policy judges to hold universities accountable for what they say they are doing, which is to create an environment, create an open exchange, which in many cases they are not doing. I think the change mainly does have to come from within, and i think by calling attention to some of the hypocrisy in our University Campuses is one way to get there. I am encouraged that we do have associations and the University Faculty coming together and saying we want to kind of reclaim areas of Free Expression and open and honest inquiry in our universities. And the work of some of these organizations are tough there. It is going to be incumbent upon University Leadership as well to become the things that university of chicago have done another set followed on. It is not just for that is for bigbut it faculty to do what they need to be able to do. , one of the things that the rights and eight responses over the past few months, that you have said over the last few years, which is civilmilitary relations. We have seen a lot of talk about the use of military and domestic law enforcement, even some careless suggestions about the military and forcing the results of the election of things do not go well or being sent into cities to keep the peace. What is the state of Civil Military relations now . Is that something that concerns the top brass at the pentagon . Is that something that needs to concern the president next year . Kori it does concern the military leadership, and it absolutely should concern the next president. Whether President Trump have a second term or best present biden is elected, President Trump has violated a lot of the Civil Military relations, and much of the role of the American Military is society in the United States is normative, not legal. And so President Trump giving Campaign Speeches to military suggestions of militarizing policing, those kinds of things are actually very detrimental to the american if they itself, because admiration that the American Public has for the American Military is due largely to two things. First, that it is one of the few remaining conveyor belts for people to become middleclass americans, and, second, because out of domestic, political debates. We see out of the survey data is when the American Military is thrust into politicized roles, that endorsements of political candidates, like the commercial that the the Trump Campaign made just in the last couple of days featuring the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. That actually does not change peoples voting behavior, but it does diminish the respect they have for the American Military as an institution. So it is bad for the military itself. The American Military does have legitimate roles in law enforcement, just as it does in disaster relief, but those roles are principally in support of civilian, elected civilian officials, in particular governors and mayors. And what some of President Trumps policies have been during the course of the protests have been to try and associate the military with his preferred policies and to impose requested, on other elected officials, governors and mayors in particular. And that is actually a terrible position to put the American Military in, with respect to its relationship to our broader civilian society. , you know, m mike, i want to put to you a question that comes from our audience, from john, and it is about trade, whether there has been a meaningful change in Public Attitude about trade, and whether china and intellectual property threat have weakened trade in a way that might endure. Public opinion about it has become more positive about free trade over the last four years. How do you see the state of the trade debate at this point . Michael well, i think it has become complicated here you know, trade has always been universal, and we have always counted on the Republican Party to advance freetrade command much of the Democratic Party has wanted to resist that, but democratic president s have tried to advance freetrade, from president clinton to president obama. I think it remains an open question about whether secretary clinton had won in 2016, she butd have pursued tpp, President Trump obviously did not. There is going to be a faction of republicans who have learned who think they have learned lessons from the trump years and who will be hostile to freetrade. Advance try to industrial policy for the United States, who will try to engage in efforts to reshore Manufacturing Capabilities of u. S. Companies from foreign nations and back to the United States. That that will have limited purchase. You know, i expect that there will continue to be concerned about trade with china. Expect that there will continue to be a lot of thought put into how to get inna to be a better Actor International trade and on the world stage, generally. China is a bad actor, and they need to be pressured to change some of their practices. But just because we may not want to fact a factory in china does not mean we should want one in michigan. Vietnam,want it in maybe we want it in somewhere else in southeast asia, maybe we want it in mexico. The basic economics that have driven u. S. Manufacturing plants to lowerwage nations have not changed. Yes, it may be more difficult, and objectively less desirable, to have a manufacturing capability in china, but that does not mean that it will necessarily come home. And efforts to, you know, provide tax incentives to get some of that actively to come home, i think well have limited success. Hope we learn lessons from the president s policies on trade. Those policies did not work. By the president s own metrics, we are now seeing record trade deficits. The president expected his trade war would reduce the trade deficit. They have not succeeded in that. Even by the narrow standard of whether or not the president s trade policies helped manufacturing, we can conclude that the policies did not succeed. The best evidence to date suggests that manufacturing employment actually decreased as a consequent of the president s trade war. So not only did we see less variety of goods and services for americans to purchase, not only did we see price increases of consumer goods, but we actually saw employment in the industry that we are trying to protect go down as a consequence of the trade war. Learn my hope is that we that these protectionist policies not only dont work but , andften counterproductive we dont continue to pursue them. On a related set of questions, an important theme nicks talk of had to do with accountability, which has been a few men will be so as we go forward. Given what we seem to be in the wake of economic invocations of the pandemic, how do you think about a mobility agenda for the coming years . What is most crucial when it comes to helping people rise from the bottom of American Society . Ryan a big question, and there are a number of answers to it, because it is, located, right . Lets start with the word mobility itself in a geographic sense. A lot of people experience , being able to hopscotch being able where they live, and need to have the ability to move closer to where that opportunity hasnt take advantage of the tools that it takes to take advantage of that opportunity, through training and what what have you. I think one of the big challenges that people have is the people are stuck in place. It used to be the lower income people were more mobile, and that has reversed, and it is not so much the case anymore. In fact, they are the least mobile population. So finding ways to get people closer to opportunity involves a couple of things. One is the affordability problem that i talked about earlier. That is the thing that has to be done at the local and state level and copy from one local and state level to another. There are some tools that the federal government has to support that. I think our approach to workforce development, at least federal policy, is riddled with all kinds of problems and should really focus on two things. One is better data for consumers, that people can actually understand what is growing in the area where they live and where they can go to get trained for that particular opportunity, whatever that type of job is. It is easier to find the best Thai Restaurant in your neighborhood than it is to find where the hottest jobs are in your regional economy. We need to make those more democratically available to use for people. Secondly, making the uses of our federal funds in this area aimed at helping people finish that training. For a lot of people looking to up their skills, they need a lot more flexibility in their training. They need to be able to not just show up on a regular semester schedule but to get the training in a way that fits their lives. Innovators and vocational training, we need to make them the norm rather than the exception that they are right now could i would focus on those couple of things, for starters. Yuval well a friend, we are down to our last five minutes or so here, and i am wondering if, at the end, i might ask you a question not to much about what the president might do in the coming years but really more like what we might do, about your own priorities as a scholar and a leader in the aei community, how do you think the work of our scholars, the Broader Community of policy thinkers around public life can play a constructive role in improving the country in the coming years . Where do you see the greatest opportunities for our sort of works make positive change . In a sense, what are you most excited about. Kori, i will start with you. Kori listening to ryan talk about democratization of Data Accessibility really struck home for me, because in the foreign and defense policy team, we are engaged in a big undertaking. Experts who are defense are working together with two other organizations, another think tank, cfis, and war on the rocks, which is an online defense journal, to develop the software to democratize access to expertise on the defense budget. Daare creating an alarmist ta and Software Tool that will allow congressional staffers, journalists, my mom to have an easy interface that allows them to think about defense strategy, how that translates into forces and operations, and how that translates into budgets, because the biggest problem we have in defense policy, whether it is on the wars or on the defense budget, is public apathy, and making expertise more accessible in this realm is a great way to making people more engaged in thinking about whether we should still be in afghanistan after 20 years or not, and how do you manage an aggressive rising china . What do we need to do differently than we are doing now . Helping people have the tools to engage in that conversation in a serious way of the work i am most excited about. Yuval mike, a similar question to you. Where do you think we can do the most good in the next few years . Michael well, i think a lot of it will come from the things that we typically do, you know, providing firstclass policy analysis, providing firstclass policy recommendations. I think that we are going to be in for a busy period of at least a year or two, no matter who areathe election, in the of Economic Policy as the government attempts to figure out policies to help get the economy back on track. A reallyat aei, play foundational role in offering advice, both behind the scenes and in public, in doing analysis and trying to figure out what makes sense and what does not, what the best ways are to pursue and what a conference of bad ideas would be. In addition to that, the, you know, coming off of the last several years, and this kind of release year previous question, yuval, i think there is a real need to speak to the foundation of Economic Policy in a way that they are did not used to be. You know, why is it important to get the debt under control . Why is it important to address the budget deficit . Why is freetrade good . Why do protectionist measures not work . Why are they counterproductive . Why is it important to have an environment with low marginal tax rates, given that, you know, what are other things we can do to raise needed tax revenue, corporateking up the tax rate or imposing punitive taxes on wealthy americans . These sorts of questions that, you know, people often take for granted and did not need answering 15 or 20 years ago, i again, and answering those answers need to take into account our current world and the Current Situation we are in. That is one particular answer to your question that i think is important. Yuval ryan, how about you . In your domain, what are you most excited about in the coming couple of years . Ryan dynamism, yuval. I like the fact that we have a number of scholars here at aei that are not willing to give up on the notion that this is a country where it is possible to make, create, and build new things, envision a future that does not exist. I know that that word diners dynamism creates a despotic response about the right and the left, because this notion that the rewards to innovation, not just at the high r d level or in the technology space, but in grassroots communities, that people can actually make and build and own things. That means that the person who has been unemployed for 20 years can start their own thing if she particulart some point, when she feels ready to do that. I think this is something that is fundamental to who we are as americans and is kind of lost confidence in our ability to produce the dynamic environment up and down the socioeconomic ladder. To me, it is worrying. I am not ready to give up on it. I know my colleagues, many at aei, are in the same boat, and i think we are a unique institution in that regard, so our policy thinking in this regard becomes more important than ever to restore that hope. This is a very different country than the one i grew up in. Yuval amen. If i can make a moderators prerogative, i am excited about the work we are doing to revitalize american institutionalism, enormous opportunities within a generation of judges, efforts to strengthen congress, that aei is going to be right in the middle of. We have a huge opportunity to improve our country, revive what is best about it, and build on what all three of you have said. That does bring us to the end of our time. Take you to the three of you for a great conversation. Thank you for the audience for joining us. You can find the new collection of essays of advice at rg, the work on a range of policy issues at ai. Org. A community who understand ourselves as part of a Larger Community of engaged citizens who want the best for our country, are eager to act to defend what made america prosperous and good and take on the problems it faces. Thank you all for being a part of that community and thank you for joining us today. The Senate Confirmation hearings for judge Amy Coney Barrett concluded, watch the next steps in the confirmation process, starting thursday, the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Votes on judge merricks nomination. Then friday live on cspan2, the full Senate Begins debate on Amy Coney Barretts confirmation. Watch live on cspan and cspan2, stream ondemand at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. There are 91 competitive house races this year according to the cook political report. Democrats have a 20 seat majority, meaning republicans would need a net gain of 21 seats to gain a house majority. Congresswoman liz cheney is running for a third term as the sole representative in the u. S. House for wyoming. Hagan. Ated jeff this comes to us courtesy of wyoming pbs