Enterprise Report Restoring Liberty, Opportunity, and Enterprise in America
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Issue No. 4, Fall 2020 Enterprise Report Restoring Liberty, Opportunity, and Enterprise in America Sharing the Blessings of Freedom By Robert Doar During these difficult past few months, AEI scholars have been tackling all of our toughest challenges. We have written about the economy, of course, and the pandemic. We have called attention to the dangers posed by China. We have also written about the importance of employment to people trying to escape poverty. And we have not been afraid to take on the thorniest of issues in America: race. This topic is not new to AEI. In a previous period, our community played a key role in the national discussion, as scholars such as Ben Wattenberg, Bob Woodson, and Walter Berns reacted to the excess of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, AEI scholars were for peaceful protests in Selma but against violent lawlessness in Newark or Columbia University. We were for civil rights under law but against quotas that defined people by their race or gender rather than the content of their character. We knew Jim Crow had to go, but we also believed in Justice John Marshall Harlan’s admonition that our laws should be color-blind and that our Constitution “neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.” That spirit remains very much a part of who we are at AEI; I have written about it, and so has one of our newest scholars, Ian Rowe. Together, these principles promote economic opportunity for all and ensure that every American shares in the blessings of freedom and equality that make our country great. These values are the same ones that attracted this year’s Irving Kristol Award recipient and Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, Nicholas Eberstadt, to AEI more than 30 years ago and helped make it possible for him to push the boundaries of his field and the way we view the world. A true polymath, Nick has helped open the world’s eyes to the importance of demographic change and economic development, the utility and risks of foreign aid, the necessity of addressing issues in poverty and global health, the true nature and seriousness of international security challenges in the Korean Peninsula and Asia, and the undetected crisis of able American men leaving the labor force. Nick’s ability to explore the profound implications of the intersection of economics and foreign policy and communicate these insights meaningfully to policymakers, academics, and the public exemplifies AEI’s values. It is an honor to count Nick among our colleagues here at AEI and to recognize his tremendous contributions to AEI and the country with this year’s Irving Kristol Award. AEI’s steadfast values continue to attract top scholars today. Over the past 15 months, AEI has Robert Doar welcomed 30 new resident and visiting scholars from a range of backgrounds—academic, AEI President and government, nonprofit, and media—who are working on some of our nation’s most critical Morgridge Scholar challenges across issue areas. In Domestic Policy Studies, Scott Winship joins AEI as our new director of poverty studies and resident scholar. A longtime friend of the Institute, Scott is joining AEI from Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, and he will build on and lead AEI’s work on intergenerational mobility, wealth, and long-term trends in economic anxiety. In Economic Policy Studies, young scholars including Kyle Pomerleau and Scott Ganz are making important contributions to the tax policy debates, offering new insights and analysis on how the tax system might be more equitable and better support workers and families. Visiting Scholar Glenn Hubbard and Resident Fellow Scott Gottlieb (who rejoined AEI in April 2019 after his service as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration) are lending their years of experience at the highest levels of government to help guide the COVID-19 response. Additionally, Amitabh Chandra joined the Economic Policy Studies team as the John H. Makin Visiting Scholar. His widely recognized expertise on health care issues will further bolster AEI’s ability to guide our country through the pandemic’s many challenges. Our new director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, Kori Schake, is spearheading major projects that will help guide our nation’s military and foreign policy planners through unprecedented challenges—all while advancing the policy decisions and principles that will bolster our national defense and American values on the world stage. To advance this work, Schake has added Resident Fellow Elaine McCusker—until recently the Department of Defense’s comptroller—and Visiting Fellow William Greenwalt to the Foreign and Defense Policy team. As you will read in this Enterprise Report, their extensive government experience will help increase the impact of their recommendations in the force and policy planning process. Additionally, AEI’s Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellowship and Visiting Scholars program continues to bring new cadres of leading thinkers and future foreign policy leaders to AEI. Finally, in its first year, AEI’s Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies (SCCS) research division has built a team of scholars that will help revive the constitutional and cultural values that are the source of our nation’s strength. Under Yuval Levin’s direction, SCCS has added new scholars in politics and public opinion (Matthew Continetti), constitutional and legal studies (Adam White), and now congressional studies, with Philip Wallach and Kevin Kosar joining AEI to conduct scholarship on Congress, its decay as a governing institution, and how it might be reformed. I am tremendously grateful for friends in the AEI community who support and engage with these and other AEI scholars and make their work and impact possible. With gratitude, Scott Winship Joins AEI Scholars Chart Path Forward for AEI as New Director Next Presidential Administration of Poverty Studies In October, AEI is releasing an edited volume titled Governing Priorities: Advice for America’s President, for 2021 and Beyond, featuring essays from nine AEI scholars offering advice to the next president of the United States. The next administration will face a set of exceedingly difficult challenges and opportunities, including the global pandemic, a shifting international order, and an economy reeling from the aftermath of extended shutdowns and reopenings. AEI scholars will help set priorities and chart a path forward for our country. Edited by Yuval Levin, the essays include: ❚ James Capretta on how to think about deficits, debt, and In September, Scott Winship joined health care costs in the wake of a global pandemic; AEI as a resident scholar and director of poverty studies to bolster AEI’s ❚ Matthew Continetti on how to ease the intense polarization scholarship on work, opportunity, and of our time through a better grasp of the condition of American economic mobility. At AEI, Winship politics in an era of culture war; plans to explore trends in intergenera- ❚ Nicholas Eberstadt on how to understand America’s core tional mobility, wealth, and economic strengths and weaknesses in a confusing moment; anxiety. He also plans to write a book ❚ Yuval Levin on how to organize the White House staff and that will reinterpret trends in living conceive of the president’s relationship with both the bureaucracy standards, economic insecurity, and and Congress; community and family life as reflecting ❚ Kori Schake on how to understand America’s role in the world and the unique problems of American pursue peace through strength; prosperity rather than an economic decline. ❚ Michael Strain on how to prioritize today’s core macroeconomic One of the foremost poverty experts challenges and pursue broad-based, sustainable growth; in the country, Winship served until ❚ Ryan Streeter on how to restructure education, worker training, recently as the executive director of and welfare to help more Americans thrive; the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) ❚ Alan Viard on how to reframe America’s tax debates and balance in Congress, where he created and revenue and dynamism to meet our 21st-century needs; and oversaw the Social Capital Project, ❚ Adam White on how to transform the regulatory state to revitalize a multiyear research project that the constitutional system. investigated the evolving nature of associational life in America. Over the past three years, the Social Capital Project has produced numerous original reports on household dynamics, charitable activity, social capital, and other important issues related to civil society in America. Before his work at the JEC, Winship was the Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a fellow at the On Wednesday, October 14, AEI is honoring AEI Henry Wendt Chair Brookings Institution, and a research in Political Economy Nicholas Eberstadt with the Irving Kristol Award, manager at Pew Charitable Trusts. AEI’s highest honor. The Irving Kristol Lecture and Summit is a fully Winship’s work over the years has virtual event, featuring a keynote from Eberstadt at 12:00 p.m. EST. The focused on a wide range of issues such lecture will be accompanied by several deep-dive sessions, including as economic mobility, income inequality, remarks from Robert Doar, panels featuring scholar recommendations welfare reform, labor force dynamics, for the next administration, and a look at how AEI is informing the and social capital. public policy process. Please visit Kristol.aei.org or contact [email protected] for registration and additional information. 3 AEI Launches New Survey Center on American Life Karlyn Bowman Receives the