Transcripts For CSPAN Conference 20240705 : vimarsana.com

Part of its freedom and progress conference in washington, d. C. [applause] good morning, everyone. I am the president of the foundation and i wanto welcome you to the 2023 editn of the conferce. I thought we would lead with a speech. It is a speech we have all heard, especially in clips. So many amazing elements of that speech resonate with us today. It will become clear why i waed for us to watch that address. There is lot to think about that relates to what we are trying to accomplish over the next two days. Why do we call this the freedom and progress conference . We call it freedom and progress inspired by a speech Frederick Douglass gave in 1870. He was asked by a bunch of newly freed slaves, what should we do . Should we only vote for republicans . Should we feel free to vote for democrats when we want to . Frederick douglass said, look, you should vote your conscience but because that is what we fought for. We fought for people to be able to vote for whichever party they want to. I will always be a member of the party of freedom and progress, he now at happened to the Republican Party that freed the slaves . Used to be that the Republican Party got the majority of the black vote and then when fdr was elected with the new deal, he attracted the majoty of the black vote because there were a lot of people who cannot get jobs and so the government started to give people certain kinds of assistance. And then in 1964, was opposed the rights act of 1964 everyone shares we are not judged by the content of our skinthere hasnt been a competition for the black vote. They care about freedom and progress. Of course, politics changes overtime. What you see here as we go through the next president ial cycles millenials are the largest component. They are not the ones that vote at the highest rate. Gen x overtime the views will reflect president ial elections. Its important to understand how millenials and gen z think and freedom in progress in a world where they run the country. Younger generations are far less religious. To a degree politics are dominated by cultural debateds about the role of religion, religious culture. These things are very important. We must understand, as things change and millenials and gen z are part of it. There are fewer actively religious people. How does that effect the way people think about freedom and progress. This is another way to think about it. The mayor polling firmssk what are your feelings about capitalism verse socialism. If you ask baby boomers they are for capitalism same with gen x. It didnt used to be 5050. Its become 50 50. There is another important element. Thatsconomics. You heard of long covid19. There is another form of long covid19 more dangerous to the country than the medical form of long covid19. Thats what the pandemic did to our national debt. The federal debt of economic output. The Great Depression and world war ii. The financial crisis, we spent lot of money during the financial crisis and pandemic relief. This is what the budt office said the project ratio is. That sliver. Its 13 trillion. A federal debt is 32 trillion. That slice of blue is 13 trillion. We will have 100 trillion worth of debt soon. By the way, whats driving the federal debt in itd used to be healthcare spending we will never get t 209 o98. If any laws change, we have another crisis in the future li covid19 or financial crisis. Its getting much wor. We have seen the Interest Rates stay relatively confident if they dont get worst overtime. The long time Interest Rate t budget assumeds 4. 5 . Do we think its equal to federal healthcare spendinghe rate charged us 4. 5 . There is no chance. This is another way to think about this. The blueurve is what we spend on National Defense and orange is interest on the federal debt. Nonpartisan scorekeeper in washington. We will spend more on interest on the federal debt than we spend on National Defense thats a tipping point. How drugs that effect ordinary people. We get tohat. So, how does the u. S. Barrow in how do we finance the debt we have in what do we do . Slice it into 100 or 1,000 incremen called bonds and sell them to people. If you buy a treasury bond you lend 100 to 1,000 t the stated. Someone can lend us 100 and someone can lend us 1 billion. The quality of the bonds are going down because more and more investors concluded they wont get paid back if they lend too much money to the United States. So, whats happening is the share of the treasury bonds. The investors are declining. A lot of the pple are foreign governments or banks. What have you, right. These are people buying the treasury bonds. The share is gradually saying ill still lend money for the United States. What that means is Interest Rates go up. If you have a bad credit score and rates go up. Same with bond markets. People buy bonds a your Interest Rates go up. Our government doesnt want rates to go up more than they have because that would crash the sck market and economy. What do we do . How do we solve the problem. The feral reserve decided to lend money to the United States to payoff its debt. Wait a minute newt. Why is it the federal government can lend money . How does that work exactly. The way they do it is creates new u. S. Dollars o of thin air. Trillions of dollars. Here is the money well lend. How will that work . If you hav a credit card bill you takeout a Second Credit card to pay the first credit card. Thatshat the u. S. Is doing. So, what happens . How does that work exaly, you increase the nber of dollars and circulation to lend more money how does that effect the economy . 2001. 5 trillion by the m2 money stock. We could snd hours on the topic . 2009. We had 5 trillion. Thats a lot of money in circulation. If i say im 6 feet tall or 12 feet tall. That means i redefine what a foot is. Doesnt mean im taller. Thats what happens when you increase the supply. A famous economist, his argument how its relative. What you see when you look here in the 1990 the economy grew faster than the money supplies. Its so successful and one of the reason the economy grew faster. It actually went up. Massively increased at a much faster pace than the economy has grown. What does that mean . They have less purchasing power than before. Thes are the components of the Consumer Price index that the government measures to look at inflation. Ey look at it the chartf the century. What its showing you is that the cost of living has increased. Its increased a specific way. So, things like technology, cell phones, those things have gone down a lot in price. Its a staple. Thats not wherein inflammation is. Where is the inflation . Its coming in healthcar and in College Tuition and fees, child care, and number of other categories. Also housing. Housing in particular is important. A lot of that goes to t housing market. You want to know why its strong,t makes it easier to barrow money to buy homes. Happen happen even though the economy overall is going well the income has gone u we he out perfoed europe. If we ask people making 40,000 how they are doing they will tell you they arent doing well. The Living Standards declined because of the rise in cost of healthcare and housing and the other factors. , within the context that we started the foundation for research in 2016 our mission is to expand economic activities. Individual liberty and free enterprise. Our argument is that you can solve these the problems and threats through more competition increasing social mobiledy and economic growth. Thats not the view of everyone. There are people out there at the conference. This is how we could address economic challenges. Thats our prospective. One thing we do is all of our scholarshis is pro liberty and pro Economic Freedom. Our structure is that of the standard. We have been great for for a lot of coverage. I will highlight one writeup. They noted the are plenty of things for free market. They are devoted to inequality. They blended those two. The quality of opportunity using the Economic Freedom. Ile, we might be the think tank of others out hire in the room tt work on the issues. We had the focus thats pretty rare and not unique. There are a lot of scholars and writers and thinkers that came about the same issues. Thats why we had this conference and we can learn from each other and learn about the best new thinking of believing eedom can achieve progress. A lot of them are big drivers for the cost of americans in healthcare, energy, and post secondary education. Prek through k through 12 education. We are delighted that this evening will be able to honor two of the leaders that have made incredible progress on Education Savings Account over the last two years and arizonas governor. Id like to highlight the panel we are having today. We have a lot of content over the next few days. What the agenda is meant to do help us think through all of the qutions we reduce the cost of ling. If you make 40,000 per year. 40,000 in california and 40,000 in dallas is different becaus the cost of living is much different. Its not just how much money you are making but howuch money is leftover after you pay your taxes, rent, and healthcare bills. Its not how much money you are making today but in the future, job growth, and wage growth. Thats the economic side. Its important to think about the culture art. The world so many people are so sour about america and its so many people involved in politics and cant agree on anything. How can you persuade more people. A lot of people do believe it in. They spoke about Martin Luther kings speech how much he sited the founding fathe. How much he sited the Great Unifying principals of america. He persuaded a lot of people. It was controversial what he argued for in 1963 and today itsomething we also all embrace. Welso talked about Foreign Policy. They advanced the freedom aund the world. How does freedom around the world have invest in america. These are topics that deserve our time. We will have outstanding panels and thoughtful. One thing id like to highlight is the fact tre are policies. This is on the left and the right. Its about how everything is falling apart. We spoke about the challenges economically. There has also been real victory and Education Choice is a great example. We persuade people of the value of our ideas and millions of parents and children. Its not a lost cause to invest in freedom and progress. Its the only way to expand the constituency for our values. I was talking toeople, you cant persuade anybody. You have to basically win. You have to own the left. Whatever it is. What chose movement shows us over the next few days. Its possible to persuade people. To support your idea if they believe that you are your bother. Im from freedom im forefreedom because i want to make sour life better. Its only when we devote ourselves to the cause how we use freedom to make other lives better. Housekeeping items for the rest of the day. If you havent all ready download the app on your phone. Its not the qr code you see on the hallway. You get all of the information. The wifi is available if you go to a meeting. If you want to ask about the event. Hashtag sb2023. It sold out but if you are on the wait list for the dinner our team will thank our sponsors arnold ventures. The John Williams Hope Foundation and bit coin policy. People that mad free opt possible. We are great to have faith in the crazy idea. We launched it and we have been able to have it as an institution. Id like to close with this thought. For the next two days. Again, what they dried there do was really hard. It didnt seem like it was possible. Had to persuade a lot of people to vote for things they didnt think were in their interest. He appealed to classic american incipals that everyone believes in. You think it polarized now they were pretty polarized in 1964. We have been far more polarizing in the past. This is about how hard things are and hard it is to persuade people of different ideas. There are a lot of people in our country and lifetime. The next few days. How do you show people its progress for their lives and help them achieve their aspirations. How do we address the real cricism of the status quo. Its important to engage on them. We will come out of that and stay stronge most of the count wants freedom. The march that Martin Luther king gave was called the march on washington for jobs and freedom. We stand for jobs and freedom. Economic progress and freedom. If we write people off this is a movement of people that will never write anyone off. Lets show up the next few days. We are thinking about every single person. [ applause ] we have our nextanel coming up at 10 00. Conservative case against free market. Welcome, how are you. Tught you just lied tos. Well, its the reason why the panel is entitled against the free market. Republicanism that might not be the free market. A lot of it gets translated. The problem of the conservative and Freedom Movement and center left on the democratic side as well is that, people are too or he wanted towards free market. Social cost a economi cost. How significant costs are and remedies might be. You found a really interesting journal. You thought a lot about how you think the conservative move and how you think about the issues. If i could id like to sort of categorize the direction and different motivations. I know i o have a short time so i wouldnt filibuster too much. The first thing is the ctique in nutritional national development. We are maximizing free trade under the u. S. Economy. Undermind our defenses. This is like industrial policy andhings like that. I think, its important to recall its not anticapitol, not antigross or business. I would actually argument its the real successor. This is part of the supply side for various reasons. We go back to hamilton and lincoln and clay. Dierent means to similar ends. The second genre is market realism verses market fundamentalism. This would argue that, conservatives over the last few decades built up an elaborate moral and physicalround markets. The problem is outside of those they didn care much about that. We saw it in Silicon Valley bank when people were very exced when it benefited them, it changed wheit was in t free rket arguments tend to be selectively employed. You hent actlly gone anywhere to build anything. Its gone towards privatizing the gain. Another example, you mentioned the deficit, republicans love to point out the urgency of the deficit when they are out of power. When in power they want to do deficit enhanced tax cuts. They say dont worry about that it will reduce the deficit. That hasnt actually happened ever. Not under reagan, bush, trump, a lot of this stuff doesnt pass any more. Acknowledging that doesnt menu hate markets. You have to take it from reality. The last thing i mentioned is the view or markets this is a very old view not invented in the last five years. I dont think its susceptible. I wouldnt argue for or against it. Its important to ask why is this more prominent in resent years i will pause two answers. One the behavior and rhetoric of big business. It doesnt seem very friendly for traditional values. I us spect one reason we have this conversation is for many years people calling themselves conservatives you can assume they are libertarian on economic issues. There is a sort of view with new ideas and you just stamp them out the Republican Party goe back and share a heyday. I would suggest that could litigation was fraying and doesnt hunt and people were searching for new ideas. New ideas come along. It was fraying all ready and ought up new ideas. Those are the categories. I think thats a fair thing. One thing i would highlight is described two different fa did i have phenomenon about free markets. The other piece which is a more inherit or underline business interest or corporate interest. Its the same thing as fe markets. This is for himselfs and regulatory barriers. The third piece is its not on a philosophical level. Is that fair. Its not just the Republican Party. Id say, in many cases the free market intellectuals a corporate lobby will write them a check and say this is the position. Mayb thats true. When its apple verses spotfy, i think a lot of free market offering guide answer. You will also see on healthcare and Prescription Drugs they are happy to take farm ma money when it comes to Prescription Drug costs and comes to the benefit they dont hold it when they support obamacare. They are not interested in repealing obamacare verses free market. Its not just for the party but many of the intellectual. Stick around for the pharmaceutical pricing panel. I promise we will have that. Tim, you wrote a book where you explore the themes of communities that are struggling in the modern world. Yeah, thank you. Thank you julius. A quick note on tha one of my earlier books had a chapter about obamacare. It will meet your standard for consistency and big business. It started in 1955. The pittsburgh steel companyet up a mill that built nails. Building nails jumped out at me. Thats adam smith. Im not saying i loved it but it was a bit dry. The pages on nails were pointless. It was as a catholic guy. I love to look at how there are multiple catholic parishes. There was a huge Swimming Pool it was by many the good life for the particular guy, the form of a person i focus on. The guy who gets a high school degree. Doesnt feel the need to go to college. Showsup at work everyday, gets married. Has kids. With overtime he can afford a house in the woods and retir nice and happy. Marco rubio talks about this guy a lot in the 2016 campaign thats the sort of life a conservative like me thinks is the good life. Its a shame the people most likely to stay married these days rally the upper middleclass get married, get a job. Being involved in your kiddies life is a luxury this guy was the good life. What destroyed that wasnt the government but first we opened up the trading route. Trying to enter the world of mexico and free trade agreement. Basically, that good life in 1965 south of pittsburgh he was protected from competition with china and europe. Pele who want to live in the u. S. A guy with women in the labor force and protect us from competition of black people and a lot of minorities. Morally, its a complicated story for that guy. The hope is to have it for everybody here. Black, women, etc. Thats a tricky question. When trade opened with the classical model. Everybody will get lower prices. The guys in the factory will move to slightly lower wage go to union town and they have slightly lower jobs. Go to union townnd you find th neighborhood the churches arehutdown. Go to fayette city and everything is shutdown. Stories of despair. The unify collapsed and the guys fell and dying from a drug overdosage. As a guy who believes in free market i think big business is the home game. Big government is a big home game for business. It doesnt provide the good life. Especially to the workingclass. I just want to put into prospective the experience within the last 14 to 15 years. E number of people in america that never attend chuh services increased between 2008 to 2022. By 40 Million People. 40 Million People in 14 years. We now have a population thats majority has more people now that say they never go to church compared to those who go to weekly service. Thats a different country. Thats ryans testimony thats very solid from my prospective. Thats a different country. You have a certain assessment or underlining of whats going on. The rational, not just government provided one but the community provided one. Thats still there in the absence. We would be at the country because they were making less money if they were doing jobs slightly less fulfilling for men if you look at the research in is service areas. They would always be underline and not fall below. That turned out not to be the case. That to me is an underline as spect of whats missing from the conversation. I think a decade ago it was mostly about conservative pocy. Not necessarily free market. It benefited big entities to a much greater degree. They can essentially navigate the idea thats been created. Small businesses toy collapse into themselves. If that was something that was bad. I think that was true to a large extent. It missed the underline social aspect going on. The other thing thats interesting there was an increased awarene cultureally on different answer of prospective between specialized and skill based jobs and things called skilled based jobs i encourage you to watch the most resent special from south park. They have all of the skilled workers and the lawyers and therapist. Oh, they end up outside of home depot and the one person thats actually finding success that happens to be the town plumber. Because hes the one person that can fix the guys toilet or reconnect the water supplies. They have a very Specialized Skill . Some instances we have thrown up a lot of barriers for them to function in the jobs by requiring College Degrees to do a lot of different things. So, thats a lot to throw at it. Th underline cultural element was absent from the conversation. Let me try to boil it down its like there are three different factors that are leading to discontent among blue collar or middle income americans. One is what you described. If you look at the polls and how do you think america has gotten for people like you. If you ask that question they have gotten better over the last 50 years. s white men and gotten worst. There is a lot too that trend. There is the point you mad about the lack of people going to church. Thats not about rigion but social community. How many people bowling alone. How many people are in network and rely onto help you with something if you have a crisis in your neighborhood. Those are social trends. Some people blame on free markets. We can get into if free market is responsible. There is thehird piece thats has free trade lead to a scarcity in blue collar work. This is something a lot of people talked about. When we started it in 2016 we were eager to look into. The thing we found if we talk to any manufacture and blue collar employer, they cant find people to work. Maybe they cant find people that can pass a drug test, thats something you also hear. There is a truck stop like in texas and a lot of people heard of them. If you go to a buckees. They have a sign that says these are the jobs available. If manage a buckees you could make 200,000 per year. Ill bring this up. In the north polling about level of decrease and patriotism. The most interesting aspect steady decrease in faith and hard worknd something people say is an important val withdrew. That speaks back to this. Wait a minute newt. I see them not having to work that hard. That becomes something thats underline or undercut theind of dirt of american process parity that it feels automatic or spring up for people. Thats one of the things that creates real distance between conservative politicians. Can i throw one more layer of a conservative critique of free market and n Just International trade but domestic free markets when downtown becomes a ghost town. Its quaint to walk into the hardware store. Its also that Walking Around of downtown is good for people. Bumping into your neighbors caused nice feeli and community straightnd safety and reduce crime and makes people more likely to have kids when they have a real physical community thats a short drive orchids bike ride away. Centralizing the economy has all sorts of dangers and have a walmart that serves four towns and four towns with no downtown is a bad tng with a lot of external costs. That said, you can read eitr of my first two books on how walmart gets corporate welfare to do those things. They dont protect downtowns with competition. We havent run that experience. Upper middlclass do . Martha vineyard people who are able to pay for the nicenes of a downtow thats what people with money do. Its not just quaint but it has value and increases the quality. Thats something defenders of free market and have to struggle with that. Walmart, doe a lot of greet things to. Help people to buy what they need and increases the quality of life and takeaway the ability of their kids and walk to the corner store at a roast beef shop. One of the criticisms we hear from the right and one of the comments. They end their addictiono cheep stuff. They need higher priorities in the cost of conmer goods. Two different questions. Ill start with the second one. To me, what actually happened in free trade is one part of this. Basically, this country was disincentivid. They protect against other countries. Any sort of capitol intensive and labor intensive capitol. If you go back to the heyday of american, younow, 30 glorious year 1960 the largest employer, the most Profitable Company in america were the largest capitol investors today the most profitable have low needs and relatively low footprints. These are the major tech coanies apple, google, etc. All of the manufacturing. So the economy hashifted to one of basically intergraded manufacturing dominance to one of intellectual property. The industry is not obsolete. Drone for example in the industry. We dont manufacture drones in america and few government supported progrs the u. S. Government uses drones and most policeorces use them. A lot of issues with that from the National Security standpoint. As you lt a lot of manufacturing jobs, those that, its the link between coorate process. Yes, they involve tradeoffs. Cheaper tvs and what have you verses losing your Defense Industrial base and losing your ability to competen a lot of still Important Industries and lead innovation. To me, that tradeoff is not worth it. I think, you know, if you try to correct that Consumer Prices will have to rise to some degree. Also the case that we are in the mist of the degloballization process any way for multiple reasons. This might happen regardless. Will you have your own proactive strategy to address the issues or essentially hing an industrial policy. Is the solution is the problem we move from free trade with other fe Market Countries to world trade organize rageime. Is that the problem or just trade in general. Its an interesting hypothetical. What if in 2000 reducing the barriers of china. Who if we actually made a bigger effort you know, to have political relations more trade with india. It might have been true countries that allow for their ow subsidies and i mean, what we have done on environmental regulations. The Environmental Movement hasnt paid attention. Until the they are on generic pharma. For india or china. Expeed much less i think its certainly the case. Its much more beneficial to the u. S. Countries where you have the lowest they wi make the most money. The running theme is other challenges things that are not actually about free market are defined as capitalism or free market. Th were part of the boom of lib tarn populism. What happened to that . Donald trump. Yes. We were calling for populism as a treatment and he main lined it into the veins. Lib tarn populism. Is thatopulism viable in the current political environment. First off, i think there are moments when you try Something Else they can come back in a different form or renewed form. Thats true by the way when you look at Foreign Policy. One of the things i think is true the libertarian populism. You dont need to use a Big Government level approach or do so using other approaches. The natural tendency of populism, you know, not just here in america but around the world is investing more power in government. We see this in mexico. If it doesnt work and breaks down. Given more power and make the problem worst. Personally, in america we reached the point and increasing the movement. We wonder how long it will take to run into a brick wall. A lot of that happened during covid19. Yeah, part of what julius was pointing out they talked about free super prize and support capitalism. Its an inevitable thing. Look at how you play in the round. So, we see some of we love the idea in addition to industrial policy. That started momting. Why are they forcing inhouse daycare. What does that have to do with any of this. Why is politics getting into my industrial politics. Thats a great argument for when government gets involved the big guys win. Government gets involved. It wont be for the community. That win. I would think in 2012 we spoke about how, when you were found in 2015 people want to writeoff the whole demographics. We have a republican nominee moving off 40 of the country not making enough money. Think about how of wack that looks. Mitt romney said they wontake responsibility for their life. They are trying to push populism. The tea party showed populism was rising and tried to take the head and shove it under water and it popped backup as a orange hred monster and steam rolled the republican establishment . The ruins of that we have fun discussions like this. They are real discussions. Government rigs the game in favor of the powerful. This was when Tucker Carlson was echoing Elizabeth Warren. There is a market for it and demand for populism and the person that provided that best was trump. He didnt feel need to have it. If i could make a dirty political point on a well known. Jokes come off. Point on the panel for higher level policies. I think we all had to acknowledge this happening and we see in the most recently number of different tendencies by a certain member of congress. Most recently, i say, this is something that was anticipating where this is going. The effect of small dollars donations on republican candidates will be extremely policy. Its the money that came from the corporate side in the past. As corporations become less and less powerful. Smaller donations for driving your priorities. The prospective on polities and ideology. Prospectively, its interesting they left the nonprofit. The traditional republicans and big business approach. What are they really saying. Big business is not our frid. We dont expect them to be our friend. Thats going to have something and run into the arena of policy in a way, i dontecessarily know yet but have an effect. Id like to get questions from the audience. Before we do that, what is the top idea you hav in terms of a policy to restore confidence. Do you think we should be doing or not doing. I dont want to name a specific policy but i think, i say this not to be a jerk. As a friendly interlock we have our panel and we dont have an industrial panel. For the most part a lot of the talk about focused. Everybody knows tre is a problem and we dont want to admit it. I think, there are a lot ofays in which big issue. It should be, has been a major republican and libertarian aid. Its democrat that are the major drivers of it. I think, its person reasonable. That would be any questions from the audience . Pleaseintroduce yourself. I wanted to followup on the point you made around the daycare and the chips act. The chips act passed under a democratic congress. The chips act would not focus in that direction, what is your broader case against reassuring and trying to address the issues. Obviously, the cost of reassuring is we have a reasonable price to pay. I will answer by taking julius advice, what are conservative free Market Insights . One is that the public cice, government will be corrupted and taken over by powerful people. The more complicated the policy is, the more we rely on subsidies or double bank shots that politicians love like the exportimport bank, we are not subsidizing this. That will be dragged away from a stated purpose. A more direct policy would be what we need to do. Do. If we need the chips for military purposes, either the the Defense Budget should have a contractor, or if the problem is we are importing chips, then have a tariff on chips. It is a simpler policy. Think of the things we subsidize to make sure we are manufacturing them directly whether green energy or u. S. Exporters or chips. It ends up getting messed up. Make the policy as simple and directly aimed at the necessity we have. I will mention we have a freetrade panel tomorrow with others and we will discuss some this stuff. Sure. All right. Other questions . Is there one over there . Okay great. And plea introduce yourself. Hi, im patricia, i work at enterprise institute. He so i see like the material is an i see material issues during the crisis which we have more options, i am not married, and maybe in a Different Society i would have had more children. I wonder, what are some ways we could communicate the tradeoff . Elayed family formation, going to college to young people or even just through like things that the government directly controls, which is like public schools, even like some requirements so people understand the tradeoffs theyre making, which are good that they have the option, but are kind of leading to some problems in society, gdp, needs to continue to go up and we need to have like twohildren per famil unit. So i know ive got the last question, but i literally just wrote a book on this. Ill be quick. The book is called family unfriendly comes out in march, that its draggg young people away from having children because you need the whole culture to support family and this is a way in which sort of the capitalist mindset. Not capitalism, but capitalist mindset people say, oh, well you should only have kids you can take care of. Its not my responsibility to help you take care of your kids, thats a broader cultural thing. The Community Institutions that ben was referring to earlier arent there to support people having children, but certainly inur schoong system were very career oriented, we dont talkbout family as a goal, somehow it would be sexist or patriarchal to talk about that and there are things that need to be done. More sidewalks, more bike trails. We need to allow women who want to stay at home part of the day because we have children, peitting reform would help them do that. And we have tons of cultural problems that are leading to this collapse in birth rate. Millennials and gen z arent having kids and gen z sounds like they dont wanto have kids. Its across the spectrum. Largely a cultural thing. I dont think we ca subsidize our way into driving up the birth rate. I completely agree with him and just to veer off that point. If i was going to have a policy in place, it would be isolationism when it comes to the nfl. The europe games are terrible and played on sunday mornings. Bring them all back right here. Its actually the downside of bar stool conservativism which im not naturally opposed to, is that it goes on too long and its become acceptable for it to go on too long, to the point that you have, you know, people who men who are in their 40s acting like they were acting when they were 25, in a way that is just should not be culturally acceptable and thats something that i think that actually has to come from within and to a certain extent is some of them are kind of starting to recognize this and recollect kind of what theyve missed in a way that i am hopeful will turn into something that resembles the kind of reconsideration that we saw within feminism and the kind of post sex and the city, wait a minute, thats not the way that it takes to live this way, from lena dunham and others. And its more important that we could achieve with the policy change certainly on the cultural level and that has to be driven into, i think, the minds of a lot of men who are currently wandering and trying to find some kind of answer for this and turning occasionally to the darkest forms of the internet. Some of them are turning to things like stoicism, different ways, when in reality theyre trying to fill something, i think personally they would fill if they had an actual faith and church life. But to tims point overalthough the idea of family and community being built to support the family formation as opposed to being this disaggregated group of cogs, where moms bar class is more important than watching the kids in theafternoon, and thats is some that. One that the question makes meaning about, theoretical look at free markets which isnt often directly made. As women entered the work force, and some have talked about this to some degree, as women entered the labor force, the marriage market is different than it used to be when only men were working and theres at least a theory, called the marriageable men hypothesis. In general when a woman is making more than a men, men in that environment dont get worried as often and led to a lot family dislocation. I dont think any of us, maybe, i dont want to speak for anyone, but if were not going to be against women being in the work force, how do you change that dynamic . Were not going to undo that and so sometimes conservativism has to look forward and support chan and i think that work places need to change. I think a lot of the flexibility of that allows people to work from home and work 20 hours a week needs to be improved. A lot of our labor Law Regulation prevents that. Youreither fulltime or parttime and that gets in the way and echo what ben things and one of the things i argue the endf my next book, men need to become dads and own thei dadliness. 50 years that wasnt the idea. The men were the breadwinner. And now it means getting home for dinner and taking care of the kids and playing football with them in the front yard. Ill give you the final word. One addition to that, as the u. S. Economy transformed over the years we developed this idea of human capital, which basically you send kids to college forever, and this is supposed to, you know, be beneficial. [laughter] this is kind of a new chicago idea. But i think one thing that free market advocates today, i think would probably i would love to work with them on, is its fixing the education system. Simply extending out education forever. Most College Degrees do not add much value to peoples working productivity. Accelerating education, alternative paths, people have been talking about Community College my whole life and nothing seems to happen, but finding ways to get people educated more quickly and into the labor force more quickly would be beneficial. We will have a Higher Education panel as well, i think its today so stick around for that. Thank you, julius, ben, really appreciate the conversation. [applause] thank you. All right. Next , we have george will and ben not ben, george will and matt. I need my coffee this morning. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversions] well, its truly an honor to have our two next guests on the stage, matt and george will, two people who need no introduction. I want to start with something that remember you saying, george, back in the day. You know,hen you used to reminisce about the goldwater electionf 1964 and say that goldwater may have lost 44 states in 1964, but he won the future and your reference was to the reagan e and all the things that came after goldwaters deat. With maybe another 40 years of nd sight, the great society, the entitlents and the charts, you werent her, but goldwater led to racial polarization between the Political Parties. Do you still believe he won the future . And i question whether goldwater led to the racial polarization. That might be the post doc fallacy. What i said goldwater won in 64 and took 16 years to count the votes. I think a lot of Political Science and history so far indicates what drove the goldwater vote particularly in the south was Foreign Policy and that the south had been trending republican, really, with eisenhower in 52, again in 56 and goldwater came along not starting the wave, t cresting the wave. He won the future in the sense that, and this is a dubious achievement, perhaps, we began to have what the political find in the early 50s, why cant we sort out our Political Parties and have crisp clean profile and politics more like europe. Well, we did it and i dont think that everyone is happy. When i came he to work in the senate staff in 1970, it was completely run by democrats such as fullbright of arkansas andcclennen of arkansas, stennis of mississippi, easton of mississippi. From alabama, these were all the Committee Chairs in the house were basically southern segregationists and there arent any more conservative democrats anymore, there arent any liberal republicans anore and no one is happy. And what has that meant for the thi that were now calling freedom conservativism, the statement of principles that you signed onto . What is the state of freedom and the conservative movement . Well there are two things going on. One is, let me get pedantic f a moment. We are witnessing a retreat from isaiah berlins 1958 lecture called the two concepts of liberty. Building off Franklin Rose relates statement, men are not free. People are now saying freedom is the absence of necessity in life, which means its really elusive and its coming tomorrow and tomorrow is always a day away. We see more and more americans saying liberty means if you ha health care youre freer. If you have housing, youre freer and this is basically the chinese social compact. We will give you material goods that you need and we will call it freedom and you will be obedient. And thats the tradeoff. On the other hand, there is, it seems to me, a need to revitalize, i hope your organization does this, our organization does this, berlins insistence on the negative concept of liberties. Liberty is absence of others and not to say there should never be restraints, but that we should but that bishop barkley said everything is what it is and not another thing and liberty should be called liberty and nothing else. In todays particular context, what amazes me is the extent to which no argument is ever settled in this country. Well, is it t. S. Elliott who said theres no such thing as a lost cause because theres no such thing as a gained cause. All the arguments over industrial policy. It a little bit disheartening to have to do it over and over again, but the alternative is to not live very long, since im 82 and thats right, youve youre on your third cycle now, probably, right . You wrote this book called the right, a new history of the conservative movement and not just the conservative movement, but political forces, the rise of trump and many other things. Where are we in the scheme of things . What is the relationship between freedom and conservativism . Sure, thank you. Its such an honor to be on the same panel as george. George has been writing his Washington Post column for 50 years and continues to break barriers. Just the other week he had what i believe to be the best columnist disclosure note in the history of the newspaper columnists calling on tim scott to drop out of the republican primary race. And columnists wife disagrees with this column. George is where he is. The important thing about the american conservativism, the adjective modifs the noun. American conservativism is distinct because we begin with the charter of liberty, the declaration of independence and that was institutionalized in another document, the constitution was explained in another set of documents, the federalists, and together these three inaugurate the american tradition, frederick douglas, Martin Luther king, ronald reagan, Franklin Delano roosevelt. And the American People are struggling to define and eye chief selfgovernance, ght, out of reflection and choice, not accident and force. And so american conservativism is always going to be distinctlyith an eye towards freedom because its in the national dna. You cannot have an American Conservative Movement that rejects americas founding princies and documents, thats not the thing. You can have other forms of conservativism that do that and many of them are on display in the world, but we have to understand that american conservativism begins with our charters of liberty. Right now though, i think what george says is a way to respond to your queson. America is having to relearn things. The essayist, tom wolf wrote a piece in the 1980s called the great relearning. I think that was about relearning how to brush your teeth though . It was about relearning all of the facts of life after having lived through the derangement of the 60s and the 70s. I think we just at the beginning ofur great relearning, unfortunately, and when look at the world today, i see that not a willingness to face facts, but in fact the flight from them and the flight from reason in many of our key cultural institutions. Our job, i think, for believers in freedom, believers in order, believers in the constitution and the declaration, is to make people face the facts of the world and also, one of those facts, a key fact is the distinctiveness of american consertivism. What if youre not a conservative . If youre not a conservative . You mentioned fdr and mlk and many would not say that they were conservatives, but argue. Whats the role for them, for sa the center left of this conversation . My view is that this is a dialog. If you look at the americans political tradition as a whole, there are some figures that are going to lean toward the side of equal when the phrase equal freedom and other political figures are going to lean towards the side of freedom. Were all looking for equal freedom so there has to be a dialog and an acceptance that either side in in dialog has something to contribute. When i look at the political scene today, i see a closing off of dialog. I see a denomization of the other and i see forces at work on the radical side, both the radical left and the radical right, the american experiment. And so if anything, i think that people who identify as conservatives, and i can say it, we should be looking for friends on the center left who wa to, 250 years ago and together we need to form a united front against the radicals who want to tear down our society and unfortunately we see this on our society on almost every front. The arguments, youve written this column, george, that haveanded with people who are skeptical of the role of negative rights and individual Economic Freedoms. I think its this. That to the extent that you do not focus your political philosophy and hence, your political practice on individuals, to that extent youre going to willyilly wi up focusing on groups with identities defined on unalterable and accidental outcomes. To the extent that markets do not alloce wealth and opportunity and they cant always allocate all of it, but to the extent it doesnt, it would be done by politics and to the extent that its done by politics, the stakes of politics will rise and as the stakes of politics rise, the bitterness of politics will rise commensurately among people who feel that their outcome in life was not fair. Is that why politics has become so nationalized right now . Thats part of it, but i think that i think we talk much too much about material outces, western pennsylvania, steel industry, free trade, all of that stuff. I think what reall has changed is the allocation, not of wealth, but of status. The fact that a great Many Americans used to be part of a working class that was in some ways valorized, particularly after the first and second world wars. And now we live in a society a third of americans, only a third of americans go to college, and the Democratic Administration run by blue collar, lunch pail joe biden is obsessed with Student Loans. I dont know if youve looked at the cross tabs in the New York Times sienna poll that just came out and i think they asked of each of the states what percentage of people had Student Loans, trivial. The resentment i suspect among those people of the obsession with Student Loans on the part of lunch pail blue collar joe is considerable. A thats a great point, and as i mentioned in the early panel, we have a session on Higher Education, well be diving into at. Preston cooper on our team has been wring a lot about the student loan bailouts. Tt, we haven spent a lot of me talking about the president ial race, the 2024 president ial race yet this morning. Give us your thoughts on where these competing philosophies stand, i think to the typical political observer the pro freedom side of the Republican Party is losing, but maybe thats not the case. What would you say . Well, george actually just wrote about this in the past week on the subject of military assistance to ukraine and how the skepticism towards such assistance on the part of some prominent senators, primarily j. D. Vance of ohio reflected a rning back of the Republican Party, a potential turning back of the Republican Party back to its preworld war ii self. This is one of the major themes of my book the right which you were so generouso have outside. When i look at the Republican Party today it resembles more closely to me the Republican Party of the 1920s, than it does, the 1980s, or the 1990s. Why do you think it is . What made that trend happen . If many ways we are living through another gilded age. So if you look at the 1920s, as kind of the long tail of the first gilded age at the turn of the 20th century, you can see some similarities. One is a remarkable influx of immigration into this country. A huge increase in the number of foreignborn americans, characterized as both the first gilded age and our own. The second is high levels of inequality both in the first gilded age and now in the second. And interestingly enough, and this is only kind of reappeared in the last 10 years or so, high levels of political instability. In the first gilded age, it was the labor movement. It was the hay market strike. It was anarchyism and in the south. There s mob violence or general civil unrest during the first gilded age. I think were beginning to see at again in the United States in the second period. And so, it makes a certain amount of historical sense or you can see it turning a tip of historical analogy at work, that the parties would kind of begin to reflect older coalitions. I think the largest reason why this Republican Party may be taking the turn that george laments in his column is the absence of the soviet union. When i think about the history of the Republican Party in the 20th century, the post world war ii Republican Party is very exceptional because its a party governed by inteationalists. Theyre conservative internationalists, but nonetheless theyre internationalists and they believe that aricans ought to be engaged in the world. And i believe one reason that the conservative movement and Republican Party adopted this after world war ii, the threat of global communism, it was unique in a few ways. One was, the religious angle if you were a social religious, you despised the atheists. And the second was the ethnic angle. Many people who, this is why gerald ford got in trouble, to view china in the way that the right viewed the soviet union and even then were still not there. On one level we see the parallel with the first gilded age and the other you see what happens when the conservative movement, the Republican Party cannot unite around a common enemy. That common enemy of soviet communism. Interesting, youve brought up point about the current state of our politics are not directly with economics, your point about dignity of workers and how go ahead if ive mischaracterized, please. Youre onto it. Mark between gave the name to the gilded age, title of one of his less successful novels. He could be a scourge of the rich. One of his bend friends was an executive of standard oil, and mr. Twain, dont you think your wealth is tainted . He said doubly tainted, taint yours and taint mine. And what is the prevalence of envy. Envy is a singularly curdling, what do we call it, emotion. Its the only one of the seven deadly sins that doesnt give the sinner even momentary pleasure. Ill pause while you go down the list, but a society in which envy is encouraged, its one thing for Theodore Roosevelt to talk about mal factors of great wealth while getting almost of all of us Campaign Funding from four people, as i recall. But that was that was passing rhetoric. I dont think envy entered the mainstream of our life to the degree that it now has and i think that that h to do with peoples sense that things are rigged, that far too much is determined by education and far too much by cognitive ability. 200 years ago, the great source of wealth in our society was land. We had so much of it we were giving it away and the homestead act. Hundred years ago, sources of wealth was heavy fixed capital. Steel mills and railroad. Today, its knowledge, information, it is necessarily whats driving the cognitive stratification of the country and that makes for kind of bitterness and envy that we dont have an answer to yet, but we better get one. Also, another source of wealth in our society tay and another difference between the two periods is government, the growth of government. Quite. And we can see this in the headlines every day, that government is a great means to wealth. And so this is a place, i think, where freedom conservatives can make Common Ground with oth conservatives, understand that the growth of government enriches all the wrong people and also, also contributes to envy. Thereay have been the same amount of envy in the first gilded age as the second, its just on a distributional level, but the difference is, government now is the agent of satisfying your envy in a way that it was not at the beginning of the 20th century. Theres a german economist name reiner zitleman studied this in countries around the world and asks people, tries to ask the samen every country. Do you believe that the country in your country who are wealthy got there through hard work or got there through luck and various other forms of that question and then asks various questions what are your views about tax policy and things like that. What he finds is that with are ever people believe that those who are economically successful got their success through connections and cronyism and luck rather than through hard work and effort, those are the places where theres much more support for whether its socialism or just interventionalist, economic approach and policy. The Previous Panel reference was made to Elizabeth Warren and her echo on Tucker Carlson. Elizabeth warren has a firm grip on half a point. She says its od five of the 10 richest states are in the washington metropolitan area, we dont have natural resources, dont make anything, laws, regulations and trouble, bute get this enormous trillions of dollars sloshing through, a lot of it sticks here, why . Because the government is responsive to intense, compact, welllawyered, higher articulate interest groups, necessarily tiny minorities who know how to exercise the levers and pulleys and ropes of this owe opague thing, the government. Its going to distribute upwards. Lets talk about this before going to the audience. We look at the element going on in politics. If you take the Republican Party, for example, what we see is that republican politicians are typically very populist in their rhetoric and do a great job in their speeches and comments of ascribing dignity to the humbleorking man and woman in the streets, but from a policy standpoint that isnt always where they end up. Its basically this bifurcation, well, im going to be very populist on culture, but on economics, not necessarily. They may be actually increasing the role of government and the role of elites and things like that. And so, i mean, whats the whats the solution to that problem . Government isnt really good at redistributing dignity. Its not really good and so i was telling the junior senator from connecticut at curing loneliness, its not good at that. What the government is good at is writing checks, the Social Security system gets the job done, knows how to do that. It doesnt know how to do other things. It doesnt know how to build model cities as weve learned long ago. Not too good at head starts, as a matter of fact. We have all of these wonderful bits of legislation under somee said our legislation like Marx Brothers movies, Horse Feathers and duck soup to tell you whats inside and i was going to stay say, its not a blunt instrument, but an instrument at all. Politics, you can argue with each other, you give me a pce of this, and ill give you that, and recognition as a zero sum game. Donald trump sees one group of people, and joe biden sees another, a huge fight in the mocratic pay, within the coalition, which group biden is seeing and recognizing and responsible for bidens drop in Youth Support i the last few weeks. We somehow need to get back to a politics of ultimately politics of freedom in my view, but if the politics of redistribution is the stopping point on way back through politics of constitutionalism and freedom, that i think of healthier outcome of america as a society. Right now were trapped in a zero sum game, but i think that begins by deemphasizing, by recognizing tt all of us are individuals, with dignity and value inherent to our person and treating each other as individuals worthy of respect, worthy of opportunity, capable of great things if given the chance, and deemphasizing all of the inherited Group Identities that have, i think, diverted the conversation in america to very unhealthy places. And theres a particularly toxic roleor Group Identities that have been reinforced by the Supreme Court in a way that was relevant to the Previous Panel where people were talking about getting away from the well, the filter used and the emphasis on College Degrees. And while that goes back to the duke power decision in the preme court. Duke power had a test that they gave for potential job applicants and lo and behold there was a disparate impact on minorities. The Supreme Court, therefore, said you cant have that test. I think at that point, a lot of businesses threw up their hand and said the hell with it, were not going to try and divide the test having a des disparate impact, we are going to have a college agree. That is the sort of thing that happens when you get away from individualism, and start thinking about groups, underrepresented groups, marginalized groups, whatever adjective youant to apply to it and you get the further democratization and unhappiness around. We talked this morning where there have been policy victories and one of the great victories lt year the Supreme Court said racebased admissions in Higher Education settings was a violation of the 14th amendment and we have a session in the conference, what are the future knockon lawsuits that may translate that form that interpretation of the 14th amendment to a lot of things youre talking about. Theyre already underway, attacking l firms that have special minority scholarships and minority internships and the rest. I think that the students of fair admissions was a decision well worth making even though it will make not a particle of difference in how the admissions offices operate, they will make them more opague. I hope youre wrong. Well have some questions. Ill let whoever has the mic pass it around. Oh, another in the front. You can go ahead and ill repeat the question if you want to just stand up. inaudible the events in israel whe we saw larger lessons for us. inaudible that somebody else that i am a perpetual victim, and seems where it has ended up must be where it ended up and woering particularly if were looking at whats going on in College Campuses in the u. S. , whether this will be a wakeup call or what your prognostications are. Knowledge, influence and information. I certainly view it as a wakeup call, just speaking with a student today to repeat the queson, the question has how the israelgaza situation changed your opinion. Especially on college campus, a student was visiting a cousin. The student was israeli, and visiting a cousin. At one of the protests over the weekend, the pro hamas forces were going doortodoor in the dorm looking for jewish students. This is the United States of america. This is, to me, unbelievable. So, i think its a wakeup call and i think its putting the Democratic Party in a schizophrenic position where you ha these fights now breaking out over some of the rhetoric that figures like rashida tlaib, political crouch because its contributing to the dropoff among the gen z vote for him. So i think its a political wakeup call. I think its a social wakeup call and i also think its a geopolitical wakeup call because the enemies of freedom now seem to me to be on the march everywhere, including in our own country. That, i think, is alarming and also makes the electorate much more open to possibilities that may have been foreclosed just a few years earlier and thats why i think we see the polls again and again. Its not just the New York Times poll george mentioned, the Washington Post poll, and if the election were today, donald trump would beat joe biden. Why is that . Whether its inflation, whether its the general sense civil unrest is returning . The American People do not have confidence in the current leadership and that makes them, again. After hitler we come, because he will intensify im not arguing this, im saying this with regard to academia. When americans hear that, a prominent person has said that he find the predatory saidism of hamas exhilarating. No american thinks that occurred at a chamber of commerce in wichita lunch or omaha. Anyone thinks it could only happen on a college campus. As orwell said, so stupid on the they could belie it. And the confidence in our higher institutions is overdue and welcome because the long march to the institutions has accomplished that to the extent also a kind of common economic culture from harvards graduate school to kindergarten in flagstaff, arizona, the same stuff. When these freshfaced kids get to harvard from columbus, ohio or columbus, georgia, fort wayne, fort worth. Did they learn about the stuff about hamas at the dinner table . I doubt it. Did they learn it in high school . Maybe a little bit, but harvard in freshman orientation to look at the world in a binary way. There are the opressors and the oppressed. Once you do that, israel is in the crosshairs. They learned it in college and i say the faster we can withdraw prestige from these institutions, the better its going to be for freedom. 60 or so years ago, kennedy wins the 1960 election and they said the professor had won and indeed they had, they said the Charles River is running into the Potomac River and it was considered a real ornament to have slesinger and galbraith and the gundy brothers and Henry Kissinger and pat moynihan on the way, having ornaments from academia was considered an elegant thing for an admistration. No more. Who cares . Who wants them . I mean, so ts is d. Its terrible that our stitutions of hher education are like that, bu its good that we know it. Fther quesons . One back there. Go ahead. Would you comment on one of my favorite Milton Freedman quotes, the failure of Public Policies is confusing results with intentions . The question was, could you commentn the insight that the failure of Public Policy is the confusion ofesesults with inteions. I had a moment in june of 2021, a rare moment where one of my predictions comes true and that is the inflation was beginning to sw up and i wrote a column with the title Milton Friedmans revenge, and another, that inflation is never a monety phenenon, saying no biden, no yellen, the inflation will not be temporary. I do this not to pat myself o the back, but Milton Friedman has a renaissance. And a historian will come out with aiography on Milton Friedman and an opportunity to revisit not just the insight you pointed and one i mentioned, that friedmans general view. Theres one key pnt from Milton Friedman, i think we should keep in mind. Friedman always stressed the interconnection between political and Economic Freedom. This was his major point. We had to support Economic Freedom because once Economic Freedom was diminished, Political Freedom would come next. And i think we see that. We have irk historical examples, but we see it at work in American Society today. As our Economic Freedom with the index of any measure, our Political Freedom, our Civil Liberties are becoming endangered as well. So any opportunity that we have to revisit the legacy of Milton Friedman is one we should seize. Theres a confusion of intentions and results, is apparent in the intentional titles of model cities and head starts and all the rest. My best friend for many years was pat moynihan, finest social scientist ever to serve in the National Legislature saying social science cant tell us what to do, it c tell us the results of what were doing. Not always good or bad. It sort of kept the journalists going for a while documenting the problems. Friedman understood the point of sovereignty by at the university of toronto, the Leading Light in, there was a perso cb he disliked what is a natural consequence of invidualism and emphasis on possessions, on property. D it seems to me if youre going to defend freedom and thats what this fine organization exists to do, you begin by saying that freedom implies a zone of sovereignty, protected by possessions and most of all, the unenumerated right, working the institute for justice and others are working to get it enumerated. The unenerated right to live unimpeded in the vocation of your choice. Without that, you dt have freedom. One of the things youre both alluding to isthat, you know, the title of our panel is the mor case for freedom and one of what i hear you both saying in different ways is that one of the strongest moral cases for freedom is that it lows a country of 330 Million People to live with each other when they have different aspirations. Classical liberalism keeps the peace, thats what it does. There are two ways of looking at politics. You can discern, you can postulate the idea and pursue it or recognize the worst and avoid it. I believe that freedom trends are those who do the latter. What freedom friends have to do say nothing lasts, everything is endangered, what the big threat . My view is that today that once you abandon the classic liberal understanding of freedom, which is that theres such a thing as human nature and from which you can deduce natural rights which e essential to the flourishing of creatures of this nature as established by historical, once you do that, you have the firm basis of freedom. Once y abandon that. Once you abandon the idea of a fixed human nature, you get you fall into the hands of those who say ahh, the definition of the individual is his or her malablety and consciousness becomes a political project and the government must use those in possession of the truth, the knowledge, that the right side of history and all that, must superintend the development of consciousness. And that way is the way you wind up either in the cambodian or todays average american campus. I think we should also keep in mind that the other side of the coin of freedom is responsibility. They have to be twins. They have to be partners, and i think in america today, people understand freedom only in their ability to be their worst self. We need to reassert that freedom means taking responsibility for your actions, freedom means being responsible for the role that you inhabit in society, that you have a place in society, whher that is as a child, whether that is as a sibling, whether that is as a parent, whether thats as a member of a vocation, part of a voluntary association. We have to be even a member of congress has a role in society and a responsibility they have to play everywhere in our Society Today we see the shirking of responsibility. So, youre right. How does freedom enable us to live together . Its not only that we live in freedom, but that we take responsility and we understand both our own responsibilities, but also, our responsibilities as citizens of the United States. Thats how freedom allows us to live tother. The political problem, article, human beings, are opionated and egotistical. How do you keep the peace with people like this . The answer, i was participating in a debate in canada, they have the debate in toronto. The question was resolve liberalism, classic liberalism against the big questions. One w it does by not answering the big questions. A god, 10 gods, and in my pocket, i dont care. And one side with me and jason, devout catholic member of the british parliament. And we get along just fine because the government is neutral about lots of things and that is essential to the culture of freedom. To both of you, what is the thing that the pro freedom thing that youre most optimistic about . What is the thing that youre most optimisti about related to freedom in america . I do think in our illusion to some of the Supreme Court decisions, that our constitutional structure is holdg. Courts, when you look at when push comes to shove. Whether people will take on the responsibilities of office holding, so i do think that in the midst of allf this chaos, holds this threat, this new threat to freedom from some of theulture producing institutions in our country and the west more broadly, we see reassertion to the constitutional idea at work in the courts, at work in the legal culture, at work among some Office Holders and that gis me hope. George, last word to you. Well, im not a little ray of sunshine. [laughter] but it seems to me tha its important there are 3 Million People in this country and in any given moment 325 million of them are not watching Cable Television and theyre not listening to talk radio, theyre raising children and fixing the screen door and geing on with life. Were not a were not saturated with politics and people will rebel against that. It took one sentence by Terry Mccauliffe in one debate in the virginia Gubernatorial Election last year, parents shouldnt be tellingchools what to teach, and the state ros up. And which hints to me that t instincts are still pretty sound. People were still not comftable with the Administrative State and bureaucracies and close, you quoted Milton Friedman, once said take any three letters from the alphabet, doesnt matter, put them in any order, doesnt matter. Acronym designating a federal agency we can do without. And i think thats not quite true, but its an indication of the restless, individualistic, i dare so goldwaterish strain in american life. Thats a great point and ill just a in my closing thought. Ronald reagan useto end every one of his speeches to the American People, look, if you just let people do what they want to do great things will happen. And its cable news and say, oh, gosh, these sour people yelling at each other, as rightly, george, most people are not yelling at each other. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] nex is breakout so go to the different rooms and youll see the different rooms you want to go to. [inaudible conversations] House Speaker mike johnson promotes his Border Security priorities during his visit to the u. S. Mexico border in eagle pass, texas. In todays White House Press briefing on questions on Border Security and recent attacks in the middle east. Later, liz cheney on her plans for the 2024 election season and thstate of u. S. Democracy. 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Ur front row seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. The house and senate are in recess for the holidays and will return next week for the start of the second seson of