Press Release

By: AIF Staff

Washington, DC – Last week, former Speaker of the House and President of the American Idea Foundation, Paul Ryan talked with Tom Donilon, Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute and former Obama Administration National Security Advisor, as part of the 2020 BlackRock Future Forum. In a panel discussion entitled: “Governing and Policy in 2020 and Beyond,” the two conversed about a number of pressing policy topics including how to expand economic opportunities following the COVID-19 pandemic, how to address the national debt in a bipartisan way, and how to reduce polarization through more robust civil discourse.  

Excerpts of Speaker Ryan’s comments, which have been slightly edited for clarity, follow.

On Addressing Systemic Racism and Economic Inequities:

“First, I think of the George Floyd murder, and I use that word carefully, I think it opened a lot of eyes in America. I think a lot of scales fell from people’s eyes and I think that they saw this needs to be looked at in a way that opens the hearts and minds of people who have never thought of these things before, so that we really can empathize with minorities who did and who do face systemic discrimination. This, first of all, needs to be acknowledged and then something’s got to be done about it.

“I do believe that leading with the [right] kind of tone and the [right] words matters. “Black Lives Matter” are true words. No one should be worried about saying that these words are true and then, we can have hopefully an honest and reasonable debate about what to do about it.

“Should we defund the police? No, I don’t think we should defund the police, but should we work on making equality of opportunity policies more in reach for other people? Yes. Look, I have gone through the opportunity zone legislation, I authored the criminal justice reform bill, and I think there are a lot of things like that that can be done to speak to the concerns of people who feel like the American Dream is just not there for them,  that they’ve been excluded from it.

“I really believe that this moment is a moment that calls for empathy, understanding, listening, and then innovative policies because people’s minds really are open to these problems and addressing these injustices that are baked into the system, that have been part and parcel of the American system, that a lot of people see. I really do think we can go after the root causes.

“One of the things I work on at Notre Dame and at the American Idea Foundation is trying to go at the root causes of poverty, the root cause of the lack of economic mobility. There are so many things I think we can do as a country, on a bipartisan basis, to address these inconsistencies and these inequities.”

On the Federal Government’s Response to COVID-19:

“On the economic front, I think [it] was a pretty impressive response. Frankly, globally speaking, you saw central banks around the world pumping liquidity into the system and I do think that the cooperation by my former colleagues in Congress with what we call “Phase 1” through “Phase 3.5” was really pretty impressive…. You had a very impressive economic response and I think that really helped bolster the economy and brought the bottom up from where it would otherwise have been. As a result, whether it is the Congressional Budget Office or the Federal Reserve, they are forecasting some pretty positive economic growth in Q3.

“The health response, I think, is a little more mixed. You have federalism here in America, so you’re going to have different responses and some states did better than others. Densely populated areas obviously fared worse than other [areas] but I think all along, we did not [yet] overwhelm our healthcare system and we did not have the overcrowding in our health care system that we feared.

“What I regret in all of this is how COVID-19 has become kind of partisan, how the necessary social distancing and the protocols that we need to operate in society have unfortunately become partisan, and I worry about that as the summer continues and as the fall resumes before we actually have a vaccine.”

On Reforming & Strengthening Social Safety Programs:

“My biggest concern, under whomever becomes president, is fiscal policy and our entitlements, which are unsustainable. They’re on an unsustainable path. It’s not too late to fix them on our own, in a way that fulfills each of their missions, but if we keep kicking the can down the road as both presidents and both parties have done, then I really do worry that our monetary policy and our fiscal policy are on a collision course with one another. And the next president is going to have to deal with that.”

On Reducing Polarization & Encouraging Discourse:

“I did 20 years in Congress from 1998 until 2019 and in that arc of time, I saw an enormous transformation of our politics and it coincided obviously with the internet, digital, data, and the rest. And in the old days, like 10 years ago, the way you measured success in politics was really what I would call a “meritocracy,” where success was measured by persuasion and legislation. [Success was measured] by could you create innovative policies that solve the problems of the day and persuade people: your constituents, your colleagues, and the country, with the way to go and that was sort of how you measured success in politics.

“In this day and age, I think success in politics is measured more on the right and the left right by provocation so we now have what I would call, in both parties frankly, the “entertainment wings” of our parties, where people look at this as why do the long slog of spending 10 and 20 years in Congress, proving yourself through a meritocracy, when you can leapfrog that entire meritocracy if you are good on Twitter, on Facebook, on digital, and if you can really be entertaining on cable television, you can immediately leapfrog that entire meritocracy and become a national player overnight. I can think of episodes on both sides of the aisle where people did that but what that does require though is fragmentation and polarization.

“And so, you get to the point where a lot of people are looking over their right shoulder if they’re a Republican or if they’re a Democrat, they’re looking over their left shoulder worried about a primary. And so, they’re focused on staying in their partisan lane and entertaining, so my worry is we now have entertainment politics, which is really by design extremely partisan. You can monetize it, you have whole websites, you have whole entertainment venues that make money off of this polarization, so what is the antidote to that?

“What do I tell students at Notre Dame as you run into this problem? You have to get more involved, not impugn people’s motives, don’t question their character, understand where they’re coming from, and have a civil debate. I think the best alternative and the best antidote to this is to do everything we can to revitalize civil society, that space between ourselves and our government, where we occupy our lives and where we put the phone and TV down and go actually interact with other people, and get out of your comfort zone and spend time with people who are not like you or who don’t think like you, who don’t look like you, and don’t live near where you live. To me, the more you can get society to integrate itself through a civil society is the best way to try and heal our politics so that we can have common ground, so that we can have a politics of mutual understanding and room for a civil debate.”

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July 6, 2020

Last week, American Idea Foundation President and former House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke with former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on his podcast “You Can’t Recall Courage.”  The two long-time elected officials discussed the importance of seizing the moment to enact meaningful policing reforms following the killing of George Floyd, the need to increase economic opportunities for all Americans, and how to properly enact the Opportunity Zone law so it revitalizes communities in-need. Highlights of Speaker Ryan’s answers (which have been lightly edited for clarity) follow and the entire podcast can be heard here.  

Restoring the American Idea

“The biggest concern I’ve had in society lately is that so many people just don’t think the American idea is there for them anymore. You know, the idea that the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life, that you can make in this country if you just work hard, you play by the rules and, oh by the way, your kids will be better off than you. There are so many people in this country who do not see that or believe that anymore. And that, to me is a real problem. It’s the biggest test of our generation.”

Responding to the Unique Challenges of 2020 

“It has been just an amazing year in that there has just been so much thrown at the world, the American people, and the country. Just an incredible amount.  We are such a resilient country. Our institutions are still strong and I think we’ll get out of this moment all the stronger for it in the future…. 

“The George Floyd murder was a horrendous event that I think served to awaken so many people, open so many hearts, pull the scales off of so many eyes, and people really did see that there is a problem. There really is systemic racism, and those protests, all of those valid and legitimate protests, [showed that] it is up to us as citizens and policymakers…. to make this time different with respect to the civic response…. We have got to make sure that we as citizens, as people, as policymakers, get the right lesson out of this.”

“Let’s address the lack of opportunity or the inequality of opportunity. Let’s address the real problems that are there. And so, I spend a lot of my time working.… to make sure that the laws we recently passed are fully executed, like the Evidence Act. I recently sent a letter to the Justice Department saying: “You now have new tools under the Evidence Act to actually address policing reforms and to actually measure the effectiveness of policing protocols and activities.” I also think there’s so much we can do in the area of Opportunity Zones and Social Impact Bonds in communities to address these needs. 

“Now is the time to reawaken the citizenry to these injustices and to the inequality of opportunity that exists in our free society. Our free enterprise system is the best possible tool to fix and heal these wounds, so that’s the kind of stuff I work on a lot. I’m actually really optimistic and interested and excited about getting on with this work because there’s such a great need.”

Minding the Mission of Opportunity Zones to Revitalize Communities: 

“Jack [Kemp] used to always say you can’t have capitalism without capital. And you can’t have black entrepreneurship in businesses and startups without capital, and this is what I think Opportunity Zones have a great opportunity of doing. One of the things we’re working on at the American Idea Foundation is making sure that all the Opportunity Zone funds being raised and deployed in the country “mind the mission,” which is when we wrote this bill…. we were saying that we have got to make sure that this goes the right way and that this is a tool of revitalization, never gentrification. 

“And so, one of the things we work on it at the American Idea Foundation is to make sure that all this capital that is going to go into these economically depressed areas, whether it’s in Appalachia, rural America, or inner cities, actually revitalizes and empowers the people who are there right now and doesn’t displace them through gentrification. We have all this capital that is being raised and deployed, and what we want to make sure now is that it meets the mission which was to revitalize, to help build entrepreneurship for people to own and start businesses, to get economic growth and equality of opportunity spread into these communities. I really am bullish on this law. 

“I’ve been working with [the University of Notre Dame’s] Lab for Economic Opportunity, which is getting economists to work with charities, to use random clinical trials and evidence and data and analytics to basically make sure that our ways of fighting poverty are actually effective and are actually working. [To make sure] they’re incorporating the right principles and incentives and we actually can make sure that the effort we put through government, through philanthropy, and through private enterprise actually works to help people bring themselves out of poverty and create a sense of upward mobility and create a sense that the American idea is alive and well, and it’s there for everyone.”