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Speaker Paul Ryan on Bob Woodson: “A mentor, a force for good, an icon”

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By: AIF Statement

Washington, DC – On Thursday, civil rights leader and President of the Woodson Center, Robert “Bob” L. Woodson announced his retirement following four decades of leading the organization as it helped restore communities and assisted people around the country improve their lives. Woodson, who founded the organization (formerly called the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise) in 1981, is a long-time friend and advisor to American Idea Foundation President and former Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

Upon the announcement of Woodson’s retirement from the non-profit bearing his name, Speaker Ryan issued a heartfelt congratulations:

 “Bob Woodson’s life and career have been solely focused on helping others. The positive impact Bob has made in countless people’s lives and in communities across the country is simply profound.

“Bob has been so effective because he believes in the inherent good of every person he meets. He has an unbending faith in people’s tenacity and determination to better themselves; he believes in the power of redemption; and he is an eternal optimist. There is a generation of community leaders who owe their success to Bob and who will undoubtedly continue evangelizing his belief in free markets and the principles of the Gospel.

“To me, Bob Woodson is a mentor, a force for good, an icon. I will forever be grateful for all that he taught me about fighting poverty from the ground up. I will always be thankful for the wisdom he imparted and for the organizations and people that he brought into my life.

“God broke the mold when he made Bob Woodson and knowing Bob, he would want us to honor his work by continuing it. I look forward to advancing Bob’s legacy as the Woodson Center begins their next chapter and remain in awe of all Bob has done for others over his amazing career.”

To learn more about the Woodson Center’s amazing work, visit their website. For more on Speaker Ryan’s relationship with Bob Woodson, check out some of the following content.

National Review: Paul Ryan’s Ground-Level Anti-Poverty effort

Forbes: The Gangster, The Preacher, and the Speaker of the House

American Idea Foundation: “The Comeback” Video Series

C-SPAN: A Conservative’s Approach to Poverty in the U.S.

American Enterprise Institute: Expanding Opportunity in America

The Atlantic: Paul Ryan finds God

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Op-Ed: Expand economic opportunities by enhancing the Earned Income Tax Credit

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By: Kevin Seifert

As the nation responds to the economic turbulence caused by COVID-19, Congress should build on elements of the American Rescue Plan by further reforming and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Since 1975, the Earned Income Tax Credit has proven to be one of the federal government’s most effective poverty-fighting programs and enhancing the credit is one of the best ways Congress can ensure a strong, bottom-up recovery from the pandemic.

A common-sense expansion of the EITC is precisely the medicine the U.S. economy needs to return to full health. The economy is still 6.7 million jobs short of its February 2020 levels but as the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life reported this month, 3 in 4 individuals who have been unemployed for less than two years are currently looking or planning to look for work. Correspondingly, employers are hungry for workers and need them to keep up with rising demand for goods and services.

Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the federal government erected new short-term disincentives – most notably through enhanced unemployment benefits and other direct payment programs, that have slowed individuals’ re-entry into the workforce. While stabilizing measures were necessary at the pandemic’s outset, Congress needs to shift from emergency responses to policies that help individuals and families over the long-term. An expansion of the Earned Income Credit will accomplish this by incentivizing labor-force participation and targeting benefits to those individuals and families most in-need.

As the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Strain succinctly stated: “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” The EITC benefit is equal to a percentage of annual earnings and determined by the number of children living in the household. In short, it is a tax credit that subsidizes work. For millions of Americans with lower-incomes, because of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the more they earn, the larger the benefit they receive. The EITC’s intentional design not only helps employers and their employees but it directly aids families and their children as well. The benefit helps society’s most vulnerableand because it is tied to earnings, it reinforces the values that come with a steady paycheck.

The effectiveness of the EITC is precisely why Members of Congress already agreed to expand the benefit via the American Rescue Plan. The recent reforms extended the benefit to Americans aged 19 to 24, increasing the credit’s maximum value and the income cap for adults without children. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, these reforms will help over 17 million low-income Americans.

In a time of legislative gridlock, these changes made to the EITC via the American Rescue Plan were a meaningful step in the right direction, but Congress should not stop there.

Congress can easily address the significant marriage penalty associated with the current Earned Income Tax Credit. Many low-income families are faced with a choice of remaining unmarried or losing EITC benefits. Congress can fix this “benefit cliff” by increasing the income limit where the EITC begins to phase-out and by reducing the phase-out rate. This would help lawmakers achieve the dual goals of incentivizing work and encouraging family formation.

Though the Earned Income Tax Credit has been historically focused on individuals with children, further increasing the overall amount of the credit for single individuals would promote work among younger Americans and assist a wider array of people battling poverty. There are 5.8 million working age adults  without children, including 1.5 million Latino and 1 million Black workers, who stand to benefit from a more expansive EITC. And given those who lost jobs during COVID-19 generally skew younger, an EITC expansion for single individuals would give this cohort a timely boost, pushing job-seekers into the workforce and incentivizing continued employment.

The EITC is already one of the largest federal safety-net programs and these potential enhancements are not without costs, which is why legislators should scour the federal budget to identify offsets. One option, long supported by both conservatives and good-government advocates, is reducing the billions in improper payments associated with the IRS’ processing of the EITC. Another approach is to reduce spending on ineffective federal poverty-fighting programs that lack the evidence and data to justify continued funding. The federal government could reallocate funds from under-performing social programs and put them towards an enhanced EITC. The federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars annually on fighting-poverty and it should be prioritizing programs that actually improve outcomes. The EITC has demonstrated its effectiveness over decades and expanding the program would be consistent with taking an evidence-based approach to battling poverty.

An enhanced tax credit that reduces the marriage penalty, fixes the “benefit cliffs” and increases benefits for single individuals would address our labor-force participation issues and would assist those battling persistent poverty or temporary financial difficulties related to COVID-19. It would help families, job-seekers, and job-creators alike.

A more generous Earned Income Tax Credit is not a silver bullet to alleviate poverty, but it does represent one of the most powerful tools at the federal government’s disposal. It has already done a great deal to help Americans economically and if Congress continues to sensibly build on the program, it will benefit even more in the future.

Kevin Seifert is the Vice President of the American Idea Foundation, a non-profit headed by former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan committed to promoting evidence-based public policies and programs that expand economic opportunities and fight poverty. This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill. 

Lessons from the Front-Lines: Touring Opportunity Zones & Nurse-Family Partnerships in Charleston, SC

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By: AIF Staff

In late June, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was joined by Senator Tim Scott and Representatives Ralph Norman and Joe Wilson of South Carolina on a visit to the Charleston Digital Corridor, a 92,000 sq. foot workspace and incubator for local businesses based in the center of a burgeoning Opportunity Zone.

The South Carolina site visits, coordinated by the American Idea Foundation, gave current and former legislators a chance to talk with employers and community-leaders about the progress being made in one of the state’s Opportunity Zones.

Created as part of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017, Opportunity Zones are a poverty-fighting tool that provides tax incentives for long-term investments in specific Census tracts. Speaker Ryan and Senator Scott have both been long-time advocates of the policy which aims to revitalize economically-distressed areas through capital incentives. Ryan and the South Carolina legislators talked with some of the 37 job-creators headquartered in the Charleston Tech Center about how Opportunity Zones have spurred business growth in a part of the state where poverty has been persistent.

As Speaker Ryan said during the visit: “The big benefit of Senator Scott‘s [Opportunity Zone] legislation is it has brought tens of billions of dollars of capital into the poorest communities of America. That’s money that would’ve never come otherwise. It’s also brought in the private sector and the public sector to focus on getting people out of poverty.”

Senator Scott added: “This has to be a win-win. A win for investors, a win for citizens, and a win for America and so far, so good.” 

While in South Carolina, Speaker Ryan also had the opportunity to meet with the leaders of the McLeod Health Clarendon’s Nurse-Family Partnership, which empowers first-time mothers by pairing them with trained nurses who provide health care and other social services from their pregnancy to their child’s 2nd birthday.  

Ryan had a moving conversation with program administrators and new mothers who detailed the relationships they formed with medical professionals and discussed how the wrap-around services helped their children and families.

As the local paper, The Sumter Item, reported:

 “Since former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has left Washington, he founded the American Idea Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes poverty-fighting programs and policy to help Americans achieve their idea of the American Dream.

“To further those efforts, he visited McLeod Health Clarendon on Friday to learn about the Manning hospital’s Nurse Family Partnership program.

“The program connects expectant, first-time mothers with a nurse, who helps guide them through the physical, financial and emotional journeys that come with pregnancy and motherhood…. The program has been proven to improve health, economic and parental outcomes, and Paul Ryan held roundtable discussions with hospital leaders, nurses and mothers to learn more.”

The Item went on to cover the visit and its importance, saying in part:

“Nurses in a pregnancy and motherhood program at the county’s only hospital know their work goes beyond health care, breaking barriers between provider and patient, outsider and friend. Now, their stories have reached the ears of who was once one of Congress’ top leaders.

“Children played in the next room last week as McLeod Health Clarendon’s private dining room, which had just the day before hosted a reception marking the hospital’s 70th anniversary, hosted a roundtable discussion about the Nurse-Family Partnership program. Attending were mothers, nurses, hospital executives and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

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“Four mothers took turns telling their story, their nurses by their side, to Ryan. He heard about the mother who was sick her entire pregnancy and had her texts answered late at night. He heard about the nurse who ensured her mothers were signed up for COVID-19 relief payments. And the nurse who started educating a mother’s young sister on how to care for a newborn when COVID-19 put the mom on a ventilator.

“What Ryan learned from the mothers, nurses and program and hospital leaders was why this program works.

“It’s more than health care,” he said.

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“If Ryan was looking for evidence-based solutions, he came to the right place when he visited the rural hospital in Manning. As Frank Daidone, CEO of the national NFP, put it, McLeod’s program is the most efficiently run and best performing NFP in the country.”

Since 2014, the Nurse-Family Partnership at McLeod Health has served more than 1,000 families in South Carolina and made over 33,000 home visits. It is an example of the impact that the Nurse-Family Partnership program can have in communities around the country. The program is evidence-based, has been expanded under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, and as Speaker Ryan observed on his visit, it is changing lives on a daily basis.

These site visits are the first of many to be conducted by the American Idea Foundation and are premised on the belief that impactful public policies can be shaped by identifying front-line organizations tackling tough issues, validating their efforts through evidence, and showing lawmakers first-hand how they are expanding opportunities to those in need.