Chairman of the American Enterprise institute or trustees. Its my pleasure to welcome you to aeis irving urban kristol e summit, featuring renowned scholar nicholas eberstadt. Nick holds the chair and political economy at aei. Nick is being honored with this years Irving Kristol award and is simply put one of aeis and americas great intellectuals. At this moment in our nations history, his work and his lecture today will point the way forward for our country and offer a vision for how to revitalize our nation and oppose pandemic world. His scholarship and that all of aei scholars has served to help americas leaders navigate our nations the story challenges throughout the course of this year. Although many challenges still lie ahead, aei is wellpositioned to meet these headon by supplying the visionary thinking and actionable policy solutions that our nation needs. Aeis college 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 believe 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 for those two. Two,. Thank thank you, dan. Good afternoon, everyone. Im robert doar, speaking to the life aei headquarters in washington, d. C. Here on behalf of the entire aei Community Welcome to our annual Irving Kristol award lecture here 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 at aei could not be happier to honor our dear friend and esteemed colleague, dr. Nicholas eberstadt. In the four decades he first came to us he and aei have grown together in so many ways. Since 1985 nick has nick has influenced and shaped the institutes work and today the humanity of his work stand as great reflection of our most dearly held values. The Irving Kristol what is the highest honor given i aei renamed we need the support and honor of Irving Kristol because he believed in the endurance of American Values and intentional Eventual Success of the american experiment. Irving wasnt in knoxville anchor of the conservative community. He advised president s and he meant toward the generation of young conservatives. He was also an optimist who defended the ideas that are at the heart of aei. Irving was steadfast in his convictions that would circulate a few hundred you could change the world. Today, our values are under attack. That is true, but like irving i am an optimist who believes that aeis ideas provide a really bad for a confident, humane and flourishing america. These ideas will not only indoor, they will prevail. And when reason for my confidence is todays honoree. Since joining aei, nick has been one of her most productive and influential scholars. He has changed how we think about issues as diverse as poverty, world hunger, global health, security challenges of the korean peninsula. Nick has been here so long it sometimes feels like hes been her his entire life, but thats not true, and i have proof. Here in the upper lefthand corner is a young nick line up with this 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 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 his next senior picture. The records tell us 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. Hes a demographer who never forgot. Demography is not the studied human population. Its the study of human people and that is been the driving force of his careers worker over the years nick has had little time for those who dismissed the innate human inclinations of freedom. Instead he has defended both academic and moral clarity, the american experiment most cherished values. In his work, he is a deeply in the 1990s nick became a strong critic of chinas one child policy. That only because he felt it was bad for chinas economy and politics because it was morally wrong. This speaks to a deeper courage that underlines all of his work. Nick is there been afraid to defy convention was in. If the was into particular conclusion, nick is that no challenge to great, no fight too daunting. His intellectual rigor example feiss very best qualities of our institute. Nick has always said that people are our greatest assets. And if thats true, then Nick Eberstadt is aeis greatest asset. Hes 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 next lecture we will be having a Panel Discussion on new volume edited by yuval event that compiles vice to the next president ial administration through several of our scholars. Nick is written a a chapter ine book with the title restoring americas promise. As many of you know, weve often given this award to Prime Ministers, Supreme Court justices, spiritual leaders as well as public intellectuals. And from time to time we are lucky to be able to recognize what uppermost exceptional scholars. So this is the part of the program where im supposed to pop 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. Much better idea. Lets let the people who worked the closest with nick over the years do the honors. The American Enterprise institute has honored itself and its ideals by presenting the Irving Kristol award can nicholas eberstadt. Nick is joining and aei pantheon that includes Ronald Reagan, bernard lewis, thomas soul, michael novak, gene patrick, antonin scalia, charles murray, clarence thomas, and many other great thinkers and doers. And, of course, a 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 Nick Eberstadt is the honoree at this years Irving Kristol lecture. He is so deserving of the honor and epitomizes everything that is wonderful about aei. Everything and learn 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 ive ever seen and met. Nicks work helped ignite the National Conversation from the state of the labor force in 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 pandemic, groundbreaking a deep and always, never boring. And like all great Public Policy work, his writing put it to the promised 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 is written, demography is the study of human numbers but it is the human characteristics of those numbers that define world against. Honestly, its a little unfair that god granted a world demographer and north korea expert, a pop a skull and an intellectual renaissance men into the same body. And most importantly, nick is aa 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 is, to put it as irving might put it, i mentioned. A minch. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 2020 Irving KristolAward RecipientNick Eberstadt. Thank you, robert is on honor is also a sentimental pleasure. At aei im what you might call a lifer. Still enjoying extraordinary privilege of serving here 35 years and counting. My debts of affection and gratitude to irving himself are immense. Not least, i might not admit mrs. Eberstadt if yet not harder at the Public Interest magazine. Mary and i are just two of the legion 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. Aei kristol lectures like the boyer lectures that preceded them, wrestle 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 her sales. So todays lecture could hardly avoid addressing our Current Crisis. Two very different paths for america live before us at the end of the covid pandemic. One is to the 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 two want it, and to not lose heart. My message is directed specialty of americans, those of you who dont really remember our country for 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 will have to do most of the heavy lifting in revitalizing our nation. Like your fairbairn forbears, you will learn firsthand americas amazing capacity to mend its flaws and prove and advance. We have record of doing this again and again and again. For almost 250 years, your country, your fellow citizens are worthy of the unalloyed devotion, deserve it actually took some day 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 ways of contagion will roll through our country before covid subsides are at present unanswerable questions. Under the pressure of the pandemic, fault lines in our have been painfully exposed. We endured 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 peacetime mobilization with national resources. Congress has authorized trillions of dollars in spending to support distressed businesses and households, and the Federal Reserve system has committed trillions of more, with no no d get inside. In relation to national income, todays state outlays for the covid prices 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 and 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. The what of the postpandemic e . How will we demobilize the super welfare state hastily thrown together to pop 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 increase public debt . If we simply muddle through, were likely to model into a nightmare, an american future defined by a new socio corporate 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, the visions inflamed, tomorrows promise squandered. Where we could settle for such a future, we would be the americans who chose against exceptionalism. We decided that thing just 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 course positive, rapid and orderly build down from war style mobilization by the u. S. Government and its central bank. But several restoring the precovid status quo antiis not a heal 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 we 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. The vision, 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, it has also made the need for such revitalization more difficult to ignore. To prevent collapse of the u. S. Economy and Financial System during the nationwide covid lockdown, washington unleashed a tidal wave of public resources. With the economy in free fall, the impulse to act urgently and go big was surely the right call. Yet, urgency also meant that the single largest state surge in American History was necessarily improvised. Characterized not only by intended consequences, but unintended, unconsidered ones. Government transfer 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 is deficit 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 covid driven deficit spending may still lie in store. The Congressional Budget Office just projected that the federal debt would be almost twice the size of u. S. Economy by 2050. 2050. 2. 5 times the prepandemic ratio. Apart from japan, virtually no country on earth grapples with such a debt burden today. More on japan in the moment. However, the full dimensions of the governments new role in u. S. Economic life were not revealed by the numbers alone. For those overlooked the colossal budget item, important not only in 92 but in nature. At the behest of congress and the treasury department, our Federal Reserve system has crossed the 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 that on to Financial Institutions but also directly to firms that judge suitable for government support. The fed already dominates the market for u. S. U. S. Treasury t and mortgage debt as result of previous, lesser crises. Its by no means inconceivable that the Current Crisis will propel it to 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 a third 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 the median wage level in 36 of the 50 states. Welcome to a will be gone job market which all men and women can get an above average salary, so long as they do not work. One study estimated spending my pandemic and the public recipients was 10 higher after the onset of the crisis than before. Pandemic benefits, in other words, could be a jackpot and you can 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. Its rationale is that it will not give credit to businesses on its own. Falsifying, potentially selffulfilling. Leave aside the unavoidable and awn avoidably corrupting politicalization when every one wants to become a friend of the fed and many will need to be. The mission promises to end in failure because the assignment is adverse selection. The record of industrial policy in other parts of the world, europe, asia, latin america is littered with failures, often defensive ones, but at least in those other experiments governments were attempting to big winners. The feds mandate is to pick losers, Companies Whose step is not of investment quality. We know already how this movie ends with mal allocation of capital on a massive scale, unnecessary destruction of wealth, ultimately weaker Economic Performance and 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, but the completely unsurprising consequence of longterm ultralow Interest Rates is a new breed of businesses that can only survive in a low interest environment. Such zombie companies, scarily existed 20 years ago. But by one estimate now account for nearly a fifth of all securities listed on u. S. Exchanges. Zombie companies, previously unimaginable levels of public debt. Neverending super low Interest Rates. Does any of this sound familiar . Yes. We have seen it all before. In japan, during its ongoing lost generation of growth. The 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 if 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 m manmade largely through years of inadequate years of reform and response in the face after major crisis, the bursting of the japanese financial bubble. Japan, you see, keep excuses for extending 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 be bebe beset by preexisting conditions that didnt the japanese. Lets look at preexisting conditions, because the need for 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 the 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 serious need of repairs. Now, some will find this assessment preposterous. After all, a summary record of National Performance since the reagan years was a marvel. 30 years ago we won the cold war and became the planets sole super power, a title we still hold. Over the years we tripled private wealth adding almost 75 trillion of real net worth. Nearly a quarter of a Million Dollars for every man, woman and child and 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 quieting eating away at our nation. For the most part our elites and subscribers didnt notice, it wasnt affecting them or the people they knew, but in the glare of our Current Crisis, that ailment can no longer be neglected. Call it the new misery, social afflictions from americas gilded age, only a fabulously wealthy nation could afford or sustain. Alas, new symptoms of the new misery abound although our nation has never been so rich, never have so many been living on socalled poverty benefits. Although health and longevity for middle age parents, never have many living as if orphaned, just a mother, just a father, sometimes just grandparents. Although our country celebrated on the eve of the pandemic, the work age for men equaled levels of the great depression. Although our national net worth has been soaring for decades, net worth for the bottom half was lower when the pandemic hit than when the berlin wall fell years earlier. No one could say a rising tide was lifting all ships, but what accounts for the miserable contradictions. The conventional diagnosis is structural economic change in our age of globalization and technological disruption. There is proof here, but it is not the whole story or even most of the story. For modern america has become ever more ensnared in a tangle of these that predates the globalization. Many people are in denial about this fact. Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined the phrase seminal pathologies, and warned that family breakdown and ramifications, illegitimacy, absent fathers, dependence and more, would limit the gains that civil rights reforms seemed to promise. The moynihan report got many things right, but we know it was wrong on one critical point. Since he traced the crisis of the black family back to the centuries of injustice, africanamericans had withstood under slavery, subsequent institutional discrimination and racial prejudice moynihan believed it was unique, an awful abberation, not a preview of the american future. Yet far from constituting a tragic exception, the social turmoil that moynihan described proved to be a pre figure ration of trends in store for citizens of no such racebased mistreatment. Births out of marriage, family breakdown and welfare dependence are more common today nationwide than among black americans back when moynihan sounded the alarm. The tangle pathologists is rampant where one in four children live in a single parent home and 35 are being raised from poverty benefits, even predominantly mormon utah is no longer immune to these pathologists, nearly one baby in five in the beehive state is born to a mother, and crime figures in our nationwide tangle. Back in 1965 one in five black prime age black men wasnt holding down a job. And during the socalled boom economy, it was higher. Over 90 million American Adults nearly three in eight now have criminal arrest records. We dont pay much attention. As sociopathologies go mainstream theres an attempt to define them there are ways to normalize this behavior. When post war growth began its slowdown, america entered into an impact with half of i. T. People, call it the modern declaration of independence. In this ugly deal we americans try 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. Between 1985 and 2017 the share of americans in homes depending upon poverty benefits more than doubled. And americas means tested citizenry nearly tripled, in effect, nearly all our population increase 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 contingency for public aid. In 2017 over one in four prime age american men took poverty benefits triple the share in 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 pay grade, but rather by a mentality. You can have a low income and still consider yourself middle class, 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 averages around 6,000 per precip yent, recipient, 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 6,000. Over half of renting seniors had less than 7,000 to their name. Nearly half of female headed renter families had less than 2,000 in net worth. Moreover, whether renters or home owners the lower half in america saw its mean net worth fall between 2018 and 2019 by a sixth, even more depending on which measure of inflation unprefers. Despite decades of swelling national wealth, these are more 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 proof for all of 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 defendants of the unprecedented runup in peace time public debt in the era when transfer payments domina dominate. Public taxes are postponed were assuming entitlements unwilling to pay for and taxing future weeks for them including those 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 a business cycle. Our social innovation and finances find an echo in the national economy. Dynamicism seems to be steadily ebbing, true, americas top corporations are world beaters, the envy of regulators in other lands and these giant gladiators cast a long shadow. Maybe thats why we dont always notice whats going on in the rest of the private arena. Simply put theres less Creative Destruction, the life blood of free enterprise. The ratio of new startups to existing businesses has been falling for over 40 years, accompanying the garage entrepreneurship has been labor market switching jobs. While they may sound good its partly a vote of no confidence and opportunities elsewhere. Structurally American Business is increasingly gray and top heavy dominated by older, larger corporations with easy access to capitals at rates smaller businesses cant obtain and aided by fixers and regulatory consulary middle firms cant afford. By some important yardsticks we see increasing concentration and decreasing knowledge defusion, more laggards, and in the surprise that our decade of growth after the Great Recession was the weakness snapback ever recorded. As we look beyond covid, Growth Prospects arent so auspicious, warning lights are 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 Health care system, we have eked out barely one year of Life Expectancy per decade with some slight decline in 2014 partly maust of americas unpredicted opioid crisis. After leading the world for educational advance for a century or more following the civil war, americas progress and attainment suddenly through a gear. For over a generation its been limping along as others pass us in mean years of education. Its hard to argue that americas Business Climate has improved it 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 distincte lower Economic Growth than we are as jet accustomed to even as public debt booms. We could find ourselves drawn 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 it achieve escape velocity from a future of stagnation, dependence and division. In sum, 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 revietalizing our nation will be with our younger americans. Id look a word for you, please. You arrived at an unsettled juncture in our National History and your American Experience has been in important respects unlike any before. Youve inherited our american sense of fair play, but grown up 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. Youre connected to everything, but youre so isolated. You resonate with irony, but irony doesnt fill that place where meaning and purpose is 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 worldchanging 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 purpose. We need a vision, the vision right now 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 at present. An america in which our citizens are Less Beholden to infantizing handouts more in charge of their own pursuit of happiness. The arithmetic of american revitalization depends first and foremost on a broad sustained upswing in national productivity. The springboard for rising living standards. Reversing our anemic performance is crucial to instilling the confidence that will help disspell 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 use today 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 tempo 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 unforgivingly. In what economists call americas race between technology and education, lagging education makes for labor displacement. With flagging wages for the less skilled to boot. Should we really be surprised to 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 welcomed invigorating churn. Americas other big innovation problem is the sclerosis, complacency and rent seeking 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. There 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 those increasingly essential, but bloated government dominated sector, health and education. Dependency foments incapacity and kills dreams. A revitalized America Needs a pathway back to selfreliance. This will be easier with Dynamic Growth, but in many case will require rethinking our sprawling welfare system. To the fullest extent possible social welfare should be on a work first, active employment or job seeking conditioning other benefits. You know whats so great about work . Its service for others that also helps complete you. Most Older Americans know this. And thanks to healthy aging, the horizons 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 of its own, but pursued correctly, we are likely to be trading a larger set of problems for a decidedly smaller set. This brings us to demographery. Some truths about the family are 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 solemnic wisdom for any circumstance, you can confidently prefer more impacted families to fewer, greater numbers to committed marriages. More than fewer children born within marriage. More time at home not less for parents and children. We know that bonds of kinship are the first and still strongest safety net our species developed. Weak and fractured families with Public Welfare systems and we have learned through sad experience that the state is a highly imperfect substitute for the father, an impossible substitute for the mother. Family revival would powerfully buttress national revival. It will come on its own organic schedule, abetted by recovered social wisdom and maybe even one of those unsummoned great awakenings that america seems toe providentially prone. Government 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 revitalizing america. People who risk everything to come to our country to start a new life embody the american spirit. Thats why immigrants generally make such fine americans. Our american creed seems specially 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 grit and ammunition 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 lands, no one else. My own preference is for highly levels, but illegal immigration is an affront not only to our rule of law, but is an affront to our democracy because it circumvents the will of the people. Americas immigration policy is badly broken so let us americans fix it. A key indicator of our National Revitalization will be wealth trends for the bottom half in our country. We should want to see their net worth growing. In fact, growing a good deal faster than for 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 unasailable 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, wed be counting the value of future food stamp use as wealth, too. Theres a world of difference between a monthly check from the government and the financial stake you put together through managing your own affairs. A free people deserve better than the life on allowance money and a debit card. A revitalized america, with the help of more work, better wages, 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 accumulated savings are the basis of personal wealth and economic freedom. Theres a practical matter, family stability is central to a households wealth prospects. The struggle to save and get ahead is so much harder in homes with just one parent. And even in the revitalized america that reality is not going to change. Our government will need to discipline its budget, too. Unlike canes 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 prophesy. The path to japanification is paved with super low Interest Rates, in america, ours will be positive Interest Rates and low budget sfideficits. Taxes will have to be higher, too, for a generation, well cease spending our childrens inheritance, but future generation also bless us for this. If we attain 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 government face crises. And the famous run out of other peoples money. America does not yet have that luxury. Were back stopped by over 100 trillion in private wealth, plus printing the worlds reserve currency. Independence or freedom means no one else is going to make us carry out the farreaching initially painful tasks of revitalization. Selfreliance means we have to want revitalization, to hunger for it and to accomplish it all by ourselves. Why not do so before our backs are to the wall and theres 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 dr. Nick eberstadt as the 2020 winner of the Irving Kristol award. And join us back here at 1 p. M. 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 a discussion about the state of our country and its prospects in a year that has seen more than its share of challenges and unexpected turns. Nicks lecture will be one starting point for that discussion and the other will be the simple fact were less than a month away from a president ial election. The winner that have election, the person who takes the oath of office in january will face some 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 attention action. That person will confront unusual opportunities in this strange moment to help the president think about those challenges and opportunities how to prioritize them and how to approach them, ai has been engaged in a special project over the last few months. Our president , robert doar had the idea of asking a number of our scholars who have expertise in different policy arenas to after advice to the president who takes the oath next year before we know who thats going to be, while the Election Campaign it roaring in the background. That means they have to think about what advice to offer not to donald trump or joe biden, but to americas president. They have to can are not the particular goals of a republican or a democrat, but the needs of the nation. Obviously, they do that as ai scholars and their Core Principles are near and they care about keeping our prosperity and the security of our country and integrity of institution, but by offering advice how the president can advance these causes before we know who will win this years election, our scholars have had to consider what issues, what challenges, what priorities really should matter most and how all americans should think about them. The result of that effort is a collection of essays. Its called governing priorities and its being published today by aei. Find it online at priorities. Aypriorities priorities. Aei. Org. Chapters offer the president advice how to strengthen the economy and think about Foreign Policy threat and revitalize our government, tax, how to help our cities recover and respond political radicalism weve seen in the streets this year and more. So to unpack some of that advice and to think about the lessons of nick he be are stats remarks just now, too, im joined for a conversation by three of the authors of chapters in that book and three of the people eiding aeis work that strengthen our country and solve its problems. Michael strain, cory shocky, and ryan streeter. In their own work and through the work of their scholars, theyre helping to chart americas path forward. Well discuss what the country is facing and then open it up to you to drive the conversation. There are two ways to pose questions. If youre watching on aei live stream. Submit them in the q a next to the page. Or else email to zev events aei. Org. Thank you for getting together and to begin with, i wonder if i could invite you to nicks remarks and also draw on elements of your own advice to the president who takes the oath next year. Theres an enormous amount for us to learn what nick just said and enormous for us to reflect on thinking about the challenges of anybody who is crazy enough who wants to be the president of the United States in 2021. Mike, start with you, nick was not cheerful, lets say, about the immediate economic prospects of our society. Hes very worried about the capacity of the economy to recover. Thats also the subject that 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 weve had . Where does the economy stand . How should the president approach it next year . Well, i think its an excellent question. Thanks everybody for joining this Panel Discussion. Now, id like to conceptualize where the economy has been and where its going by thinking about a journey from a depression level catastrophe to a normal, but severe recession, to a weak economy and then to a healthy economy. And we were in a depression level disaster in march and april. We had the Unemployment Rate above 15 , you know, properly measured closer to 20 . We had annual rate of gdp growth of about negative one third. The economy shrank by about one third at an annual rate. Household consumption plunged, exports fell. The economy really was in terrible, terrible shape. To give this some perspective, it took about two years for the Unemployment Rate to double from 5 to its peak of 10 in the Great Recession, which began with the 2008 financial crisis. In the pandemic recession, the Unemployment Rate 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 were in territory thats much more familiar and in some ways, thats a comforting place to be because, again, we were in such bad shape not so long ago. You know, i think the next president regardless who he is needs to first and foremost avoid doing things that will make the recovery slower and that will thwart progress. So we should not be raising taxes in a weak industry, we should especially not be raising the Corporate Tax rate which would hurt Business Investment and worker productivity and wages. That should be item number one to avoid to the plausible sets of items. We should not be doing things that will slow the process of adjustme adjustment. To get to a healthy economy well need for some to shrink and others to expand and need the capital to flow. We dont need as many Movie Theaters workers than we use today, but likely need more amazon delivery drivers, and we should not gum up the works of that and im worried that some of the policy debate might push us in that direction and in addition to not doing things wrong and in the way we need to continue to provide support for businesses and to households. Theres a lot we shouldnt do and a lot we should do and the next president is going to have his hands full. Next, cory, in the economic sphere as mike suggests, this is a moment of the intense urgency and focus. In World Affairs its a little less clear exactly where to focus. In some ways this pandemic has put International Relations on hold, but its exacerbated some very Serious Problems we face. How should the president in 2021 think about americas role in the world and channels of running our Foreign Policy . Well, first and foremost, until we have a Pandemic Recovery plan that americans are going to feel comfortable and confident with, theyre 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 americans that the future is manageable for them because its a gateway to them caring about chinese aggressiveness, the war china started on the border with india, in the south china sea. Concerns about what russia and turkey are doing. And these are all important questions for Americas National security and challenges for Americas National security, but for the totally understandable reason, americans arent going to care until the major thing that has disrupted all of our lives front and center in american policy. There are also looming longer term concerns that because of the pandemic were not going to be paying attention to. Foremost is getting americas debt on a longterm sustainable footing and thats not an argument against pandemic stimulus spending, absolutely not. But its an argument that by 2024 americas debt service is going to be larger than the defense budget. And if not addressed over time is going to crowd out all discretionary spending, including foreign and defense, and to put our debt on what is sustainable enormous choices now and choices if we dont deal with it pretty soon. Those longer term challenges, thinking how to iron out our pile for managing a rising aggressive chinese and making use of our alliances relationships. Those are longer term challenges, but were also only a few good choices away from the United States being vital and vibrant in its defense and Foreign Policy. Ryan, i turn to you in reflecting a little bit about what nick said. Our domestic politics often break down the lines of what seems like culture, identity, but in many ways a line of city and country which i think was implicit what in nicks remarks and focus. He devoted a lot to working class people in Rural America and suburban america, and we also need to think about the revitalization of the cities without which a broader american revitalization isnt really possible and maybe especially for conservatives, its important to understand the ways in which cities are actually central to american vitality. How would you approach that question now if you were advising the president in 2021 . Yeah, thank you all. And its good to be with you and cory and heartfelt congratulations to my colleague Nick Eberstadt, a great honor. Its important to think of our economy and society geographically. In an age of resurgent populism when grievance politics is kind of hot, its maybe not popular at that talk about the importance of cities, but the blunt fact is that they just really are essential to our economy and to our culture. And about 1 of counties in america account for about a third of gdp and a fifth of our paplation. The vast majority are produced in urban areas and its not helpful to pit against heartland america, ill have more to say about that in a minute. Its important commentary about feem people fleeing the cities during the pandemic and cities 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 is probably accelerated that, but in a limited survey date that we have. When people are moving even during this era of covid, usually the jobs, family opportunity. And a lot of people have been moving away from the cities for some time. Where have they been going . Thats what i look at in my chapter to say when you look where people are moving 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 more affordable. Places that have more reliable infrastructure, better schools and provide the kind of safety that poeople are often looking fore. I find the threelegged stool that they write about cities helpful here. Cities have been animated boo i by commerce and safety and strong sense of place and i think that people are generally looking for these things. You look at the last 10 years the Fastest Growing cities in america by population, its 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. I mean, just raw numbers over the past decade, and san antonio added more than los angeles has and more than new york has. And theyre looking for affordability and mix of opportunity that those places bring. Its worth noting as people move from one place to another, theyre not just moving from one large city like new york to a place like nashville or place like austin. Theyre also moving from outlying counties near metropolitan areas, we have this phenomena people are leaving more dysfunctional places, and leaving stagnating places in the hinterland for cities as well and generally tend to be moving to places that provide the mix of basics that a lot of the places get right. Even whatever their politics might be, its worth noting the top 10 destinations for memorial movers the last few years have been half of the states where the places have been are places without an income tax. People are making decisions for the basic reasons. And its worth pointing out right now because weve seen this growth in urban dysfunction, weve seen this in our cities and over the last generation, theres been quite a big shift when you look at the situation of inequality in our cities. If you go back to 1980 and look at the 15 most unequal cities in america, only two major metros make the list. New orleans and orlando, and half of which are in the south. When you fast forward today, measured between the 90th and 10th per percentile. San jose, san francisco, los angeles, new york, washington d. C. , weve seen this move towards greater inequality really in class terms now away from what might have been explained more by race a generation ago. Its in the places that are typically strongholds of progressivism. Im making more ideological. And many are governed by democrats, but have more political competition at the state and sometimes at local level that tempers ideological Agenda Setting for more practical kind of policies like making housing more affordable, that attract people to those places. There is an interesting gauge of political competition that i should mention though is that there has been a partisan sort of shift in the last 30 years which is worth pointing out. When you look at the top 20 metro areas by population right now, that you have 16 mayors of democrats of those cities, three are republicans and one an independent. The same 20 cities just in 1995 had 10 republicans and 10 democrats so you havent seen a political shift of republicans away from cities and more dominant by democrats. And thats probably related to why weve 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 and you think between 1991 and 1996, you had a, really, the last time we had a wave of domestic policy formed like this and were urban in nature. The first voucher program. Charter school program. Housing reform on a massive scale. Introduction of Community Policing, as a National Project and welfare reform in 1996. These were done by democrats, these reforms were pushed by both by mayors and governors of both parties, but it was a time when i think the political competition of the day actually produced some good ideas. And so i talk about what maybe some of the ideas might look like Going Forward and i think that theres a real need for policy makers to be thinking about what the place actually means for cities and i get into that in my chapter and tackling the affordability conundrum is a deal. And the responsibility for inequality is really because of local dynamics and urban, and strong proponents of federalism like myself, with federal policies in that regard in terms of tying federal funds for the cities in which theyre freeing up the housing policy to have better housing and better prices. I think we need to relearn the lessons of Community Policing and this is a time to accelerate school reform. I know that everyone is tired of having kids at home and having them back at school and this is a time when microschooling, new ideas like giving charters to collections of teachers within public stools, this is a time for Public Education in our city to match the diversity and complexity of cities and i put out a few other kind of blue sky ideas like using the charter city concept domestically for cities to address a wide range of concerns and ways that are better for their growth and safety. And then also, the idea of introducing a regional strategies, excuse me, to connect kind of outlying areas to their metropolitan center. So, all to say, i think theres a lot of hope in our cities that we havent been seeing lately because of the problems and the unrest that we have. People are showing that cities are hopeful places by the way in which theyre moving to them. Weve been focusing a lot the last few months what is wrong with some of the cities that have been on fire and protests that have been hit particularly hard by the virus, but what we havent been spending a lot of time doing, is looking where people have gone. Theres a lot thats right in those places and understand what people actually want from their leaders in their country and i think that we can build a good policy agenda in cooperation with governors and mayors that i think can put together a pretty good agenda on that front to really kind of overcome some of the stasis thats overtaken some of our cities and the barriers that have productivity growth there. Thank you, ryan. One. Things you really bring out there and its also a theme of nicks remarks, ultimately the driver of change has to be a change in Public Attitude. In a democracy you dont get anywhere without Public Opinion behind you and for those of us who want to improve things theres a 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 have to be a challenge for anyone in politics at this point and certainly anyone who wants to be our president this year. There are ways in which the expertise that each of you brings to the table intersects with that. And cory, start with you, i think there is a kind of careless isolationism thats been adopted by people in both of our Political Parties now, a sense of looking at what the last 20 years have been about. At least people thinking, well, that was a mistake, weve got to stay out of this stuff without giving much thought to what americas role in the world ought to be and what the costs are of changing that in some dramatic way. Does the American Public grasp the need for Global Engagement now and how do you make that case for an engaged america, given the sheer exhaustion that people feel in our politics these days . Its a great challenge, and youre right that the public has no large appetite for big undertakings in foreign or defense policy, but its actually not a hard case for american leaders to make. Much easier for american lead towers make than leaders of almost any other country because americans are outward looking and Americans Care about our values. There was just an article in the Financial Times yesterday about how the Prime Minister of zambia was pushing back against china trying to create preferential treatment for Chinese Company to have their debts repaid. Thats a violation of the International Monetary funds rules for repaying debtors. Its a small example, but exemplifies two things, first, the way that a chinese dominated International Order would be very different from the american order that was created after 1945 and second, how the americanled order isnt actually much of a burden for americans to sustain because its so beneficial to others that they assist in it. That is, that zambia is challenging chinas ability to create a different kind of rules for the order. And thats the great secret of american success. Its actually not a very hard sell to make to americans that the current order is beneficial for our security and our prosperity. We built it that way. And youre not going to like the orders that follow it if the United States doesnt remain engaged, work with our friends and allies to sustain, to present russia or china or others who dont share our interest and dont share our values from changing the order into something less beneficial for us, and less prosperous for us. Mike, if were on the subject of important responsibilities, it might be hard to argue for, we should talk about deficits and debt. Our colleague, jim, has a chapter in the book which again, people can find at priorities. Aei. Gov. I wonder how you would begin the argument for entitlement reform. It seems to be abandoned by both parties. The bipartisanship that seems to be eshouldnt Pay Attention to entitlements. How would you advise a president who wants to take that up in a responsible way . Where the public should be . Well, 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 concerns that was voiced after the financial crisis and Great Recession and the policy response to that, that there would be some sort after greek style debt crisis, you know, didnt come to didnt come to fruition. Conceiving of this conceiving of the debt as a problem that is akin to a bear at your front door thats going to charge into your house and hurt you and your family, i think, is not the right way to conceive of it. Instead, its more of a problem of termites in the foundation of your house. Its not going to get you one day, instead, over a period of time its going to gradually weaken the foundation of your house and you know, in stretching the analogy too far in the economy. Making the case in that way, though more accurate from an Economic Perspective and also, i think might sound more plausible to a skeptical public. It emits a certain policy response. What we need to do is put the trajectory of the debt to gdp ratio to inflict inflict it from going up, and we were tractor the largest gdp. Up and up and up. Thats bad. Its a problem that needs to be solved but the way to solve it is by making changes to our entitlement programs, especially sosa scared and medicare, to the structure of our tax revenue so that small changes today can accumulate into large changes in debt projections and can allow the debt to still be large but be shrinking over time as a share of the economy rather than growing. This is a major problem. Its one of the biggest problems facing the United States. Its not a problem thats going to set the house on fire tomorrow but the sooner we start tackling this the better 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 kind of these questions as policymakers is how to do with the simple fact of the intense polarization of our political culture now. How to do with that, its a subject of my own chapter in a book which talks about politically institutional reform, but how should we understand that polarization itself . Is the public as polarized as aie states . What we know about how americans think about each other across party lines . Tell us about the work aei is doing to think about Public Opinion more generally and bill and many years of work of extraordinary work with developing into a real center on Public Opinion. Its a great question, yuval. The short answer is yes, we are very polarized on narrow questions. If you ask a question was that people would be upset if their child came home dating a Trump Supporters are trump opponent, temperatures with flair and express that the pollsters and Public Opinion researchers. So yes, if all youre doing is serving peoples Political Attitudes right now youll see an america that is incredibly polarized much more than a generation ago on fundamental questions like that. When you probe more deeply and that is one of the reasons we started this new survey, its to look at communities in in a muh more granular way and to look not to exclude politics but looked beyond that 12 people are doing. You discover there are a lot of things that ties together still and despite the fact we have seen many of these secular trends that are disturbing in terms of trends within households, community, faith, all of those things are real. At the same time when you look at whats going on at the Community Level youll find there are still some strong confidence in what i would call a range of american institutions. We find the American Dream is still alive. Mike has written an entire book about this. Our survey work shows for most americans in every demographic category people to believe you can get ahead and have a better life however you define that. We also find people are animated by visions of the American Dream that have to do with having a Strong Family life and enjoy your freedom to its fullest extent. Its not just about having a home and higher income than you picked it parents did. People remain confident in the local leaders even if they lost a lot of trust International LeadersInternational Leaders. In their national leaders. There are number things that i people together together throughout their lives, get to school, these were the art, politics locally often is not quite as vicious as it is on twitter and nationally enters what we can learn from that and can take some hope from some of the people are finding and just as people about what this penitent thinking about, what the expenditure doing and how it affects their outlook on america. America. Theres more optimism out there than media cover it and those of us in the chattering classes like to talk about. 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 youre watching us on live stream or email it to us. One of the themes nick talked about is an important distinction between changes that a been brought about by the pandemic that were passed with the crisis and changes that may be have been revealed by the pandemic but that are here to stay and that will transform American Life in some enduring ways, that things will be as they were before. Cori, i would hate think about the u. S. China relationship in that context . More to the point i wonder how how the president should think about in 2021. Did the experience of the pandemic change the way we ought to approach china . Beyond that is the next president inevitably going to approach china in a way would have been the last few years . Weve hardened our sense of china as an adversary and is that here to stay, and should it be . I do think that view is here to stay at a do think it should be. What has changed, not just american but International Attitudes about china, is the Chinese Government behavior. It predates the pandemic but the pandemic really cast abroad 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 risk in order not to admit the mistakes that they are making, the predatory nature of chinese behavior. Just since the pandemic started china has lashed out militarily towards india, towards several other countries, and chinese behavior has been moving that way since at least xi jinping consolidated power, but, for example, Dan Blumenthal and zach cooper excellent chinese experts argue that it happened earlier than that. The great thing about american policy towards china is that we created an opportunity for china to opt in to the security and prosperity of the existing order. We held that responsible stakeholder possibility open for a very long time, nearly two decades, until china demonstrated that not only does a want Something Different but it wants to change the rules and institutions as the International Order in order to dominate it in ways that the United States doesnt favor, European Countries dont favor, countries everywhere dont favor. The only thing that i think has been holding back a different or a 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 liberties that americans have demanded and secured for themselves, and what the rise and more asserted and dangers china is reminding americans, europeans, africans, Latin Americans and asians is that the truth that we hold to be self evident are not just american truths, and that this Chinese Government poses a threat to them, that all of us need to hold hands and find creative ways to counter. Thank you. Mike, are related question in your domain. The pandemic and the response to it hit the economy like an earthquake. What lasts from this three . What is changing about our economy what the governments role in the economy that you think is an easily going back as opposed to crisis measures that would be withdrawn when its over and we will be back where we started . My expectation is that this Economic Policy world pretty some 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 state provided Unemployment Benefits expired in late july. The Paycheck Protection Program expired in early august. Those were the two big things the government did. Direct checks to households. We havent done that again. The fed is taking extraordinary actions, but they are doing about what they had done in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008 in those measures, the truly extraordinary measures that the fed took. The economy could look at different but, of course, the economy is always changing. It may be that this was the final blow that Movie Theaters will be able to sustain. It may be that people are more comfortable and more used to online shopping, having Home Deliveries so you may see the Movie Theater sector shrank. We may see Home Delivery sector expand but those types of sect sectorial reallocations, those expansions and contractions happen all the time. Maybe people like Outdoor Dining and restaurants do more of that. I can thats the of standard process of adjusting to changing consumer taste that successful businesses engage in. I do expect to see some changes. I think a lot of people who used to wake up in new york or washington on a monday morning a flight to los angeles for for a onehour meeting and then fly back may just do that over zoom. So i would expect to see marginal marginally less Business Travel. I dont think Business Travel is in any sense a thing of the past but if we saw 10 reduction in Business Travel, a 10 increase in working from home, these sorts of marginal changes wouldnt surprise me what i expect the economy will kind of put this in the Rearview Mirror and kick the dust off its feet and get back to what it was doing. Ryan, the pandemic has had some transformative effects on how americans live their lives more generally. What do you think has change about the american way of life over these past seven months that may not go back so easily, whether in Higher Education, in People Choice that where to live, other arenas within your domain where it seemed 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 lies they were leaving, not that im just rooting for normalcy again but i do think that depends on how long it takes for us to have the effective medical interventions were all hoping for, things could snap back more quickly. Where i think things on the policy landscape the mystically could really be changing is keying off some of my comments earlier. We have seen leading up to the pandemic a growing awareness of the role of local leaders in driving up the cost of housing and making life very unaffordable in some of our cities. 20 years ago when you sit here in washington, d. C. And have a discussion about the cost of housing and always return to subsidies. Thats been changing the last ten years as people look at the wheel way which the rules are written locally is pricing some people out and allowing others to stay in and its made some of this inequality that is new i was talking about urban inequality i was talking about in my remarks is i think what weve seen the unrest inner cities, shining a brighter light on the culpability of our leaders at the local level. Im hopeful this could go either way. Theres a tendency for a lot of urban leaders to constantly cast about national culprits for problems that are under their jurisdiction to control, whether its the police or the cost of housing or the quality of their schools. After this pandemic and then the unrest we saw the summer following the killing of george floyd, that we now have a brighter light on who is responsible for the stuff and it opens up the door for some creative maneuvering when it comes to policy. On the Primary School front there are some real changes here as well. I think some of the Great Research that some of her education scholars are doing at aei trike you a School District so doing will be very useful and i fear we will see some real disparities emerge that will again shine a light on what the nature quality and place of some of the School Districts, the role it played in children having some serious learning decline in some places and other places seeing that they did just fine. Its going to raise a lot of questions about School Policy at the level. As you mentioned lastly, and i will wrap up, i do think Higher Education has been primed for destruction. Its been starting. Weve been talking about this for a couple of years, watching these problems weve had with the cost of Higher Education and then the outcomes of Higher Education. Now that people of the doing Remote College life now for a full while, we will start to see some of these middling universities kind of really struggle to square the circle now worthy of being able to get away with costs and you think it will be harder for them to do that afterwards. Its going to be a landscape of a lot of disruption. Let me follow up on that and draw some of the themes that are appearing in her audience questions. Beyond the pandemic the past few months have seen some very disturbing signs of radicalization in American Life, protests that began as response to Police Abuses that quickly escalated in some places into riots that have turned out to be in some respects connected to a broader movement, to portrait American History as rooted in injustice and evil, a movement that is been closing of freedom of inquiry on campuses here this is clearly spreading the on campuses and we are seeing a struggle over our countries core identity and moral purpose. Ryan, when he think about that big he ended up on higher ed and this is in some way centered on higher ed but has spread will be on it. How do you think about the dangers and opportunities of this nature in that sense . Is there a role for the president of the trade and other policymakers doing anything about this challenge . I am concerned about the things you just mentioned, and since you mention i read i would say that we have reason to be concerned about higher ed weve recently concerned about the campus culture. Its a very real force. I would say uniquely american phenomenon, use some of this in other countries but not to that extent and im still puzzling over why that is. I do think the fact american universitys have overspent on beefing up the nonteaching aspect of the campus has contributed to that creating offices whose job it is to essentially create the conditions for campus unrest and grievances to be aired which you dont really see across the pond in europe or the uk to the degree we have here. Theres a real challenge there and i think the role of the president is probably limited but it do think the president to talk about these things and call out hypocrisy when he sees it. And look at other creative ways for federal policy to hold universities accountable for what they say theyre doing, which is great and a private of free and open exchange which in many cases theyre not doing. It mainly does have to come from within and by calling attention to the hypocrisy on a lot of her University Campuses thats one way to get there and i am encouraged we do have associations of university faculty, together saying we want to reclaim areas of Free Expression and open and honest inquiry in our universities, and the work of some of these organizations have helped their but its really kind of income of one University Leadership as well to do the things that those university of chicago done and others have followed on. Its not just put out statements but give cover to their own faculty to get to do things they need to do without being hampered. Corry, one of the things the riots in response over the past few months have pointed to the subject you thought a little bit about, a lot of overuse which is civilmilitary relations. We seen a lot of talk about use of military domestic law enforcement, even some careless suggestion about the military and forcing the result of the election if things dont go well or being sent into cities to keep the peace. What is the state of civilmilitary relations now . Is that something that concerns the top brass at the pentagon, something that needs to concern the president next year . It is something that concerns the military leadership and encapsulation be something that concerns the next president , whether President Trump has a second term or Vice President biden is elected. President trump has violated a lot of the norms of civilmilitary relations, and much of the role of the American Military in society in the United States is normative, not legal. So President Trump giving Campaign Speeches to military audiences, the suggestion of militarizing policing, those kinds of things are very detrimental to the American Military itself, because if the admiration that the American Public has for the military is due largely to two things. First, that its one of the few remaining conveyor belts for people to become middleclass americans. And second, because it stays out of our domestic political debates. What we see from the survey data is that when the American Military is thrust into politicized role, that endorsements of political candidates like the commercial at the Trump Campaign made just in the last couple of days featuring the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that actually doesnt change peoples voting behavior but it doesnt diminish the respect they have for the American Military as an institution. So its 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 officials, and in particular governors and mayors. What some of President Trumps policies have been during the course of the protests having to try and associate the military with his preferred policies and to impose those unrequested on other elected officials, governors and mayors in particular. Thats actually a a terrible ph and to put the enacted a smelter in with respect to our broader civilian society. Mike, i want to put you question that comes from her audience from john and its about trade. The question is really whether there is been a meaningful change of Public Attitude surrounding trade and also whether concerns about china and intellectual property theft have weakened public support for free trade in a way that might endure. In an odd way with bipartisan resistance to free trade although Public Opinion about it has become more positive toward free trade over the last four years. How do you see the state of the trade debate . Its become complicated. Trade is always been controversial and weve always had counted on Republican Party to advance free trade and much of the Democratic Party has wanted to resist that, but democratic president s have tried to advance free trade, from president clinton to president obama. It remains an open question whether if secretary clinton had won one in 2016 she would have pursued epp, but President Trump obviously did not tpp. Theres going to be a faction of republicans who have learned, who think they learned lessons from the trump years and who will be hostile to free trade, who will attempt to advance an industrial policy for the United States who would really try to engage in an effort to we sure Manufacturing Capabilities of u. S. Companies from foreign nations and back to the United States. My guess is that will have limited purchase. I expect there will continue to be concerned about trade with china. I hope and expect there will continue to be a lot of thought put in to how to get china to be a better actor in International Trade and on the world stage, generally. China is a bad actor in the need to be pressured to change some of their practices. But just because we may not want a factory in china doesnt mean that we should want it in michigan. Maybe we wanted in the band. Maybe we want it somewhere in southeast asia. Maybe we wanted in mexico. The basic economics that have driven u. S. Manufacturing plants to lower wage nations have changed. Yes, it may be more difficult and objectively less desirable to have a manufacturing capability in china but that doesnt mean that it will necessarily come home. Efforts to provide tax incentives to get some of that activity to come home i think will have limited success. I hope we learn lessons from the president policy 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 wars would reduce the trade deficit. They havent succeeded in that. Even by the narrow standard of whether or not the president trade policies helped manufacturing, we can conclude that the policies did not succeed. The best evidence to date suggest the manufacturing employment actually decreased as a consequence of the president s trade wars. So not only did we see less variety of goods and services for americans to purchase, not only did we see ice increases in consumer goods, but we actually saw employment in the industry we were trying to protect go down as as a consequence of the trade war. My hope is that we learn that these protectionist policies not only dont work but often counterproductive, and we dont continue to pursue them. Ryan, on a related set of questions, an important theme of nicks talk had to do with what we would probably think of this question of mobility which has been a central theme for us at aei and will be all the more so as a go forward. Given what weve learned in recent years and given where we seem to be in the wake of the economic implications of the pandemic, how do you think about a mobility agenda for the coming years . Whats most crucial when it comes to helping people buy from the bottom of American Society . Thats a big question and there are a number of answers to it because its complicated but ill focus on just a couple. Lets start with ward mobility itself in a more geographic sense. Its important to understand a lot of people experienced upward mobility in the life by being able to hopscotch to the labor market, just even within their own area where they live and need to have the ability to move closer to where that opportunity is and take advantage of the tools it takes to take advantage of that opportunity, through training and what have you. One of the big challenges that we have is, the people are stuck in place more than they should be, used to be low income people in america with the most mobile because when youre living in a day that suffers economic collapse you the pickup incumbs or else. Thats not reverse and assess in which the case below. In fact, they are the least mobile population. Find a way to get people closer to opportunity involves a couple of things. One is the affordability problem i talked about and thats the thing that has to be done at the local and state level and copied from one local and state level to another. There are some tools the federal government has to help support that. I think our approach to Workforce Development at least federal policy is riddled with all kinds of problems and should focus on two things. One is better data for consumers that people can understand whats going in the area where you live in where they can go to get trained for that particular opportunity, whatever that type of job is. Its easy to find the best in your neighborhood and if it were the hottest jobs are in the regional economy where you live but there are tools that allow it to be done here we just need to make this more democratically available to people. Secondly, they can use for federal funds in this area and at helping people finish that training. For a lot of people looking to up their skills and experience a step up on the ladder they need a lot more flexibility in their training. They need to be able to not just show up on a regular semester schedule they get to training in a way that fits their lies. There are some entrepreneurs and innovators in the technical and Vocational Training space. We need to make them the norm rather than the exception cyber focus on those couple of things for starters. Friends, were down to our last five minutes or so and i wonder if at the end i might ask you a question that is not so 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 it yet scholars, the work of our product unity of policy thinkers from public life can play a constructive role in strengthening the country in the next few years . Where in your particular arena f expertise d. C. The greatest opportunities for our work to make positive change . What are you most excited about . Cory, i want to start with you. Listening to right talk about the democratization and Data Accessibility really struck home for me because in the foreign and Defense Policy Team we are engaged in a big undertaking, 18 of us who are defense experts are working together with two other organizations, another think tank, csis, and war on iraq, which is an online defense journal, to develop the software to democratize access to expertise on the defense budget. We are creating an enormous database and Software Tool that will allow congressional staffers, journalists, my mom to have an easy interface that allows them to think about this in strategy, and how that translates into forces and operations and how that translates into budgets. Because the biggest problem we have is defense policy, whether it is on the wars are on the defense budget, his public apathy. And making expertise more accessible in this realm is a great way to make people more engaged in thinking about whether we should still be an afghanistan after 20 years or not, and how do you manage an aggressive pricing china. What we need to do differently than we are doing now . Helping people have the tools to be engaged in the conversation in a serious way is the work i am most excited about. Wonderful. Mike, a similar question to you. Where do you think we can do the most good in the next few years . A lot of it will come from