Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and we are honored to have you at aei. Im delighted to welcome you to this event in partnership with the yg network and National Affairs. We want to talk to you today about policy solutions in bringing back the middle class and solving problems of poverty we have seen now for 50 years. Today is the 50th anniversary of president Lyndon JohnsonsGreat Society speech that was the beginning of an experiment that basically remade the way our government interacts with its citizens, particularly citizens who are economically vulnerable. President johnson painted a picture of the Great Society with the following words the Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to its a his talents. Place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect and not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. Its a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. Those words would be unusual coming from most politicians today. It gives me a minor sense of of the government worrying about the quality of my leisure time. [laughter] the government wants to make sure you are never bored. That sounds like something out of all this huxley. It is a little bit dated to be sure but its a reminder of what stimulated the modern conservative movement that was overreached by the government in the areas of our lives where the government is not appropriate. Goals of therty Great Society were laudable and they were good. The vision was something i think we can all stand behind today. The question is what has happened over the past halfcentury . What does the data say has happened in these antipoverty goals . We have spent trillions of dollars on the safety net for the poor. We will spend about a trillion dollars this very year on the safety net for the poor between transfer payments and overhead. That is not success. Only in d. C. Does spending cap the success. , when wedeprivation talk about success, is way down and health and longevity are way up. Those are wonderful things. Life is better for poor people than they were in 1964. That is mostly due to Economic Growth and the progress of technology. We can plausibly credit some of those gains to safety net programs as well. The problem is, the poverty rate has not changed. In 1964, may 22, the poverty rate was 14. 7 of the american population. Today is 15 . Those numbers would get any ceo in america fired 100 times over. 50 years and no change in the Central Metric of success in the war on poverty. This percentage of the popularity the percentage of the population has risen from four percent in 1951 before the war on poverty to 35 today. 15 ther words, to keep a poverty rate, we have more more people who are effectively being supported by the government. The percentage of men in the workforce this is a metric that is important for the vitality of a society it has 68 en from 81 in 1964 to today. The percentage of men between the ages of 2064 who are not institutionalized, who are not in the workforce am aware idle, has tripled since 1964. Lets be honest that is not what success sounds like. That is not what success looks like. This has not been a success. Some good things have happened but we need to be honest about these things because we are talking about the lives of poor people here. We are not talking about the egos of policymakers and people who run think tanks. We are talking about millions of americans who have been left behind and its been acute and worse over the past five years in this country. We have to face facts. There has been a 50 explosion in the uptake of food stamps since january of 2009. We have never seen anything like this. There has been a 20 increase in disability claims. We are leaving the poor behind. We need a new set of solutions that reaches from the poor all the way to the middle class. We cannot afford to continue to be two countries. Thats what brings us here together today. We have an incredibly distinguished panel of policymakers were talking about the most cuttingedge ideas in a new Great Society, in a new war on poverty. We start to my right with House Majority leader eric cantor. He has represented the seven to strict of virginia in the house of representatives since 2001. He was elected by his colleagues in the house to be the majority leader for the 112 congress and again in the 113th before he was the majority leader, he was the House Minority whip. Senator tim scott on my far right has served the people of South Carolina in the u. S. Senate since 2013. Before he joined the senate when he was a member of the house of representatives in South Carolina and for many years, on the charleston city council. This is senator mike lee from utah. He was elected in 2010 and is made a big footprint since then and is known not only as a strong defender of the constitution as a lawyer but as an advocate for the poorest members of our society. There is lots of talk here today and im looking forward to hearing with each of these gentlemen has to say. I will get right to it and start ,. Th majority leader kantor there is a lot to talk about in reform conservatism these days. Allhave talked about it over the country, making life work, making life better. And theres a new book, making life grow. This has 13 essays that lay out the future. Its a futuristic document but how to make some of these things come to life. The big question is what is reform conservatism . What are you pursuing as part of the reform conservative agenda . Thank you. Thanks so much for hosting us here at aei and i want to wish you a belated happy birthday. [laughter] 50 years old in one day so welcome to the ranks. I really appreciate you being here. If we think about it, policymaking is about problem solving. All of us who have had the privilege of being elected into Public Office should be trying to address problems that the folks who elect us are facing. You have laid out very sick sink plate the problems i think our country is facing and overwhelmingly, the indications are that the core of america, the working middle class families are facing some Serious Problems and its about their outlook and faith in the future and whether they can see a better life for themselves and their kids. As you point out, overwhelmingly, the signs indicate that they dont have that sense that they will and joy upward mobility, that they dont have a sense that somehow they will be able to make a better life for their kids. Reform conservatism to me is about applying the conservative principles of individual freedom , personal responsibility, and making sure that we peel back the reach of government to create more space for those working middle class people in america for the bulk of americans to see a better life. Principles toe the actual solutions. To me its very helpful sometimes to think about the working family or maybe the single mom who at the end of a hard day has put her kids to bed and then has to face how she is going to make ends meet and pay the bills at the end of the month. Thinkthat scenario that i the Reform Conservative Movement , the solutions that come out of great thinkers like mike lee and tim scott, those scholars here at aei, can be so beneficial. In the house, we have been about an agenda called an america that works. I was here for two months ago giving a talk entitled making life work. This is about helping people. This is about encouraging them and making it easier for people to pursue the happiness that was the vision of the founders of our country. That agenda in the house is very much focused on building on the kinds of reform that tim scott has been talking about on education in the secondary schools, the kinds of reform that mike leigh has been talking about in Higher Education reform. My job as majority leader to help guide these kinds of ideas through the legislative process. Frankly, thats why i am so excited about this new look room to grow and the great ideas in there because it reflects the energy and the robust nature of what this Reform Conservative Movement is about. Lee, you have been speaking to middle class and working poor concerns since you came to the senate. Anybody who thinks they know with the Tea Party Republican is nice to Pay Attention to what youre saying because they dont. You are redefining a whole lot of categories, you are scrambling the notions of what it means to be a conservative republican and all kinds of ways i admire very much. Our second panel today will discuss room to grow a little bit more. It features one of your bills to expand the Child Tax Credit. Can you talk a little bit about that and what it means and morally why it matters . Re, as a leadin to that, i want to say that everything we do in this area, the purpose of conservative reform agenda is to emphasize and understanding expressed by Ibrahim Lincoln in his first big address to congress when he said the purpose of government is to lift artificial weights from all paths of, to clear the laudable pursuit for all and to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. That of allemember the obstacles that americans face, particularly working parents, poor and middleclass families, some of the most insurmountable obstacles that have to be removed are put in place in the first place by dysfunctional Government Policies that are Holding People back. Starts really where i when i look at this. The greatest opportunities, the greatest engines of economic mobility, not to mention Economic Growth, are themselves the twin pillars of our society which are free market economy and our voluntary esta tuitions of Civil Society. When those things are strong, the poor and the middle class can get ahead. We have upward economic mobility when those things are strong. When they are weakened by government, those things start to atrophy and economic mobility is impaired. You mentioned the Child Tax Credit proposal that i have. The idea there is to get government out of the way at least to have the government stop penalizing hardworking parents. Parents in many cases are penalized twice by arotech code. Once rather overtly and intentionally with the marriage tax penalty but a second time with an unintended, much less wellknown penalty call the parent tax penalty were working parents are taxed effectively twice relative to our senior entitlement programs. They pay once into the system as they work and pay their taxes and they pay into the system the second time as they incur the rather substantial cost of raising their children according to the usda, it works out to about 300,000 per child. In my experience, thats a lowball estimate. Children,aise your you are building the next generation of taxpayers who will be paying the Social Security and medicare benefits of todays workers, tomorrows retirees. Our current tax code does nothing adequately to offset this significant contribution. When you consider to couples that have otherwise the same tax situation and the same income and charitable contributions and same mortgage, couple a has four children and couple b remains childless but couple will be putting into the system ties but twice but couple will be putting money into retirement so this tax credit starts to offset the parent tax penalty. Of one of the ideas you are seeing coming from this group you can read about in this book but you will see more of reflected in legislation. When i getwhen you together socially, we inevitably talk about your ideas for helping poor people, something we care about a lot and something you have a lot of personal its periods in. You have an incredible inspiring life story. You have lived a lot of the things you have talked about in trying to help people. You are a guy who thinks for himself. When people say what is the new right . I say google tim scott. This is a man who thinks for himself. Can you talk a little bit more broadly about what you have learned from the Great Society program . What have they done well . What have they done poorly and how can we learn from it . A if you step back for second, i like to think for myself but i have listened to you for a long time and learned a lot. When the most important diet mountain dew tastes almost as good as regular mountain dew. I appreciate that, thank you for pointing that out. In addition, when you think about things that fail and things that work, that diet mountain dew really does matter. They wanted to feel good and make a difference. Is toct of the matter kids like me growing up in houses of Francis Scott living in the wrong zip code, it did not work very well. When you look at those same zip codes, things are getting worse. That is part of the challenge that we face. We have to try to figure out how to have an Education System that is not driven by zip codes. We have to study the root and not the fruit. We have a conversation about the fruit. What i learned as a kid who flunked out of high school and then got it right is that education seems to be the gateway to the American Dream. Unless we will focus more attention on the root causes, we will never get rid of the fruit. Timeve not spent enough seeking out how to unleash the some of ourined in poorest areas of the country. The School Choice opportunity that we have focused on really does that. We provide real opportunities for kids mired in poverty and has been very successful. The d. C. Opportunity scholarship is case in point. Over the last two years, we have seen 6000 students go through the Opportunity Scholarship Program and has produced remarkable results. Kids who do not go through the opportunity scholarship or have the opportunity to go to a school of their parents choice. Raduate about 56 of the time those kids who were enrolled in the d. C. Opportunity scholarship actuate about 93 of the time graduate about 93 of the the time. 91 of those kids go on to receive a college education. If were going to address the challenges, we have to look at the fruits. Sometimes they are we have to look at the roots. Sometimes they are pretty simple. It helps us eliminate poverty permanently as opposed to having simple bandaids brought to you by the United States government that cost too much, delivers too little, and does not alleviate the ultimate pain. One of the things i admire is that your fundamental orientation about the poor is that they are assets, not liabilities. They are people that have value. I speakf the things in schools every month. Put on poor being kids, at risk kids. What an awful label for a kid. We were high potential children who have the same potential as anyone else if we are shown the right way and the government cannot do that. We need local control and parents to have more choices so kids have a better chance. I get pretty excited about it you guys i was a kid flunking out of high school. There is a great opportunity for america to embrace its highest potential folks, who often times are left out of the economic chain. This is a point that marco rubio makes a lot, too. It characterizes the new right. Another point that all three of reasone made is that the for Free Enterprise is not the rich. The reason for Free Enterprise is the poor. Do not need Free Enterprise as much as poor people do and that leads me to the next topic. What of the things we have been barriers to poor people availing themselves of the blessings of the Free Enterprise system. Washington, if you want to be a real estate agent, and that is a typical job for a , you need 135 hours of basic licensing. Be a say you want to cosmetologist because you want to do nails or braid hair in your home for money. Which is a typical first job who has for a single mom. To not be fined, you need 1500 days in licensing, 200 school and the district of columbia. That is antipoor and it is unamerican amanita solution. And we need a solution. Your focus on the poor and the working middle class is where this entire Reform Conservative Movement is about. The bulk of the people in this country are not those who have a college or graduate degree. They are wage earners. They feel this country is not there for them. We want to restore that faith in the future. You point out there are way too many barriers to success. Is oneensing question that i think strikes to the heart of what america is about. You have always talked about the earned success of this country and that being the way to best pursue happiness. If you have government in a place where it says, we will just make it more difficult. If you look at young people today, the examples going on, the kinds of upstarts in the theomy, food tracks, uber, Immediate Reaction to government if we want to stop it. You point out about a cosmetologist. In the house, we had a hearing of Small Business committees. On average, you are right, across the country, 300 72 days to become a licensed cosmetologist. If you look at a position like an emergency medical technician, there is only 33 days required. Most people who dont have a Higher Education degree, they deserve us to exert extra effort to tear down these areas barriers. Were going to move along the front. I intend to reach out to the governors around the country and to do an inventory of what theyre licensing practices are about. Lets tear down those barriers for people who want to st