Press Release

Washington, DC – Last week, as part of Purdue University’s Presidential Lecture Series, American Idea Foundation President Paul Ryan joined a conversation with former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) entitled: “American Democracy: Where Do We Go From Here?”

The discussion was moderated by former Governor of Indiana and current President of Purdue University Mitch Daniels and featured questions from various student organizations on the key policy challenges facing our nation. Speaker Ryan talked about efforts to reduce polarization, expand pro-growth economic policies, and address the major issues facing communities around the country.

Watch the entire conversation here, read a recap from the Lafayette Journal & Courier, or check out some of Speaker Ryan’s comments (edited lightly for clarity) below.

On revitalizing civil society and meeting the unique challenges of the 21^st century digital landscape:

“I taught a class on political polarization last semester at Notre Dame and if you dig deep into this, there have always been different anxieties [in society] and what the digital and social media platforms do is they really drudge these up and give life to these anxieties. And the problem we now have is that you can make money on it. You can become famous. You can make money and monetize polarization and anger and those darker kinds of emotions. They’re good for hits. They are good for clicks. They’re good for ratings and they can be monetized and what I would call “political opportunists” can seize that, jump on that, and ride that.

“This is a new challenge to self-governance in our democracy the likes that we’ve not really seen before which means each of us, not just political leaders but community leaders, civic leaders, business leaders, and academic leaders have got to work much harder to try and overcome these challenges and to revitalize civil society. [Civil society] is that space between ourselves and our government, where we actually lead our lives, leaders have to get us to put our tablets and our phones down and work with one another.

“We need to experience one another and get people out of their comfort zones, out of their homogeneous societies, and integrate with one another. These are the things I work on at my American Idea Foundation, a poverty fighting organization that seeks to try and bridge gaps, to get suburbanites into the deep-inner cities and get people from inner cities out to the deep rural areas to try and get people to cross-pollinate and find common ground so that we can find solutions. Long story short, we’ve got to find ways to revitalize civil society, put aside these new challenges, and pick leaders that endeavor to do so versus those who try to ride the division to the top.”

On how leaders can reduce polarization:

“You need to articulate a political philosophy and a view of life as a leader that seeks to unify and inform and inspire people. What I mean when I say that is this: I served in Congress for 20 years and I had a pretty big Hispanic population in Racine and Kenosha that I represented. I always did town-hall meetings and I always had an interpreter and when I would then go in the rural areas, people would give me a hard time about that and I would just ask them to come join me. I would try to explain to people how we are a melting pot, how when my Irish ancestors came over and during the famine, they could only do jobs like being firefighters, policemen, or construction workers and we were not really well received either and we need to change that, but I think there’s a history of this and it’s just been accelerated by technology.

“I think it is really incumbent upon leaders to try and articulate a vision of inclusion, assimilation, and that shows our common goals, our common humanity, a common theme of opportunity and renewal. We want a free society that is safe and prosperous and full of opportunities and this is what people are seeking.”

On bringing down the cost of health care:

“I offered the alternative to Obamacare and I offered [a replacement bill] through the House of Representatives a couple of years ago. I would do refundable tax credits, which means a type of voucher to buy health insurance for everybody. It would have more for the poor, less for the wealthy, and I would change the way the insurance rules work so that you would get more affordable insurance.

“I would have risk pools that covers the people with real, big illnesses, so if government just bumps up and pays for the people who have catastrophic illnesses, you can dramatically lower the price of insurance for everybody else. A tax credit goes really far and everybody can get affordable care. I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at that, plus transparency in pricing and quality so you have true competition.”

On why the debt should matter to younger Americans:

“This is existential. It will affect your generation, your prosperity, and your ability to have a good life and a good economy. It really kind of does come down to healthcare. If you look at our healthcare entitlement programs, those are the greatest chunk of our unfunded liabilities and we have an important social contract that needs to be met. The government made promises to people like my mom, who is on Medicare and Social Security, so the question is: How do you keep these promises? How do you fulfill the mission of these programs without totally bankrupting the country and driving us into debt?

“I think the best answer is reforming these programs by bringing more market-based solutions to them which brings more choice, more competition, and brings down the costs. I’m proud of the fact that when I ran the House and when I was Budget Chairman, every session the House passed a budget that balanced the budget and paid off the national debt. It had reforms for Medicare, important reforms to Medicaid, tax reforms, budget reforms, and spending caps. There’s a way to do this. The problem is we could never get it anywhere else but the House of Representatives in those days.

“It is really hard for politicians to touch the “third rail” of embracing these reforms. This and immigration reform are the two big ones that got away from me [as Speaker of the House]. I think if we address these two issues, we will have a great 21st century for America.

“My last comment is getting healthcare right, which is using market-based solutions in my opinion, but I think the way to do this, politically speaking — and I hate saying this because I always thought this was a political punt, is a Commission. Something like the Greenspan Social Security Commission or the Base Closing Commission. I was on Simpson-Bowles and it was declared dead on arrival just about the minute it came out with its results by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi. We need a commission that requires an up or down vote on its findings by both houses of Congress that cannot be filibustered. I think, frankly, this is the best political path to getting this done. Mitt Romney, and I think he’s got a Democratic Senator on it, has a bipartisan bill to do just that and it’s in the Senate and has been introduced in the House by the Problem Solver Caucus, so that to me is the best political solution that’s available right now.”

On Trump bringing the “Forgotten Man” and dangerous conspiracies to the Republican Party:

“First, I’d say those groups are disgusting vile groups that have no place in the Republican Party. Period. End of statement. If you asked me who the Proud Boys are or who the Oath Keepers are two years ago, I would have never heard of them. They should be disavowed, they need to be disavowed, and I completely disavow them.

“I would say that one thing President Trump did do though is he brought a lot of disaffected blue-collar workers into the Republican party. I can just tell you from running around Wisconsin, which is not unlike Indiana and North Dakota, you had the Forgotten Men and Women who felt that globalization, technology, trade, whatever had passed them by in the 20th century. My own town of Janesville: We started with a GM plant which shut down and everybody wanted to have a new, great-paying job in our town, only [to have their wages] be replaced by 30 to 40% of the salary they were making, People are really upset about that and he spoke to them and he brought them into the Republican Party. So, I can speak from these personal experiences that he brought a lot of disaffected, blue-collar workers into the party.

“He also brought those elements you mentioned and he breathed life into and gave some kind of normalcy to [these groups], which is totally wrong. This QAnon thing is just a crazy conspiracy theory, Frankly, I think we have a real problem with conspiracy theories now [and that’s] partly because of Donald Trump and because of the way the internet works, and the way these things start pinging around the universe before the truth gets out. Leaders have a responsibility to tamp those down and that’s where he would miserably fail on that front.”

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By: AIF Staff

Washington, DC – In the latest edition of The Catalyst, a quarterly publication produced by the President George W. Bush Institute, American Idea Foundation President Paul Ryan discusses the importance of keeping the American Dream alive.

As part of an interview with the Bush Institute, Speaker Ryan details the work being conducted by the American Idea Foundation and elaborates on how policymakers can embrace success solutions being implemented in communities around the country. Ryan also shares his thoughts on how the Biden Administration can successfully work across the aisle on common-sense issues that expand economic opportunity.

Speaker Ryan’s full conversation with The Catalyst is accessible here and some excerpts of the discussion (edited for length and clarity) follow:

How can policymakers ensure America remains the land of opportunity?

“This is basically what I have dedicated my post-Speakership to. My whole foundation is designed on this and the work I do with the American Enterprise Institute and at Notre Dame is all focused on just this topic…. I think there are specific policies and efforts that need to be deployed because right now, there are whole generations of Americans, millions of Americans who just don’t see that the American Dream is there for them today. I think the good news in this story is that it’s right around the corner if we put the right policies and the right efforts in place to get at this.

“I frankly believe we’re on the cusp of some really good breakthroughs in poverty policies and policies designed to ignite upward mobility. If we can accomplish these goals, get these policy achievements, and change these mindsets, I really believe we can reignite this core, glorious idea that the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life. This idea that if you work hard, you can make it. You can you can be the best version of yourself and that the opportunity of the American Dream is alive and well and most importantly, everybody sees that it’s there for them and that they can achieve it.”

Why do public policies focused on expanding opportunity matter?

“What I really believe we can do is scale up solutions to criminal justice and just get ourselves into a virtuous cycle where we’re actually repairing things. I think Opportunity Zones is another area where we are using private capital to flood the zone in the poorest of the poor communities. It’s something that I helped put in the tax reform to revitalize – not residential properties, but revitalize communities. This is another area, and we spent a lot of time at the American Idea Foundation on this, where we can really move the needle on poverty and get capital to capital-starved areas, so that we can create opportunities and upward mobility.

“All of these efforts that we’re just talking about now have one thing in mind behind them: It’s never too late for redemption. There is always hope. And in this country, you can make a great and better life for yourself and you can leave your kids better off than you were. There are too many people who don’t believe that these days, but I really fundamentally believe if we apply ourselves to these policies that are just coming online and do more, we can reignite the American idea so that it’s really bought into…. I see things like this as helping bring us together to revive civil society and get us all focused on making sure that one another does well. And so, that to me is an inspiring movement, that to me is the politics of hope, inclusion, and inspiration. It’s what I’d like to see more of frankly.”

Why is the American Idea Foundation focusing on ideas outside of Washington, DC?

“I think the best thing that can be done is to go and find those diamonds in the rough, those programs out there that are really making a difference, learn from them, and then build, scalable, recordable models that can be replicated.

“Let’s take [an example] in Texas. Let’s take Catholic Charities in Fort Worth. I spent a pretty good deal of time with Catholic Charities Fort Worth. They have, in my mind’s eye, one of the best anti-poverty programs and they have a case-management program called the Padua Project. The Padua Project is a program that this wonderful lady named Heather Reynolds, who now is the Executive Director of Notre Dame’s Lab of Economic Opportunity (LEO), founded. The Padua Project, which is you get a Catholic Charities caseworker who is attached to no more than say 20 families to help them set up a plan to get out of poverty. It takes not just six months or eight months; it takes three or four or five years. They work with them, building a plan that is erected with incentives and disincentives, carrots and sticks, to troubleshoot and activate all the resources that are available, so that each person can work themselves out of poverty and build a better life for themselves….

“We have run a randomized clinical trial (RCT) on Padua and we have concluded it makes an enormous difference. So, setting up this sort of case-management program in the right way, with the proper incentives and controls is something that now we’ve sort of scientifically proven. We built an evidence model. We built procedures and practices. This could be built and rebuilt and replicated across the country and really move the needle on helping get people out of poverty. There’s just one example of something that has nothing to do with Washington, DC or the federal government.

“Catholic Charities has got the secret sauce. They figured out that it can be replicated. We figured out how to replicate it and now what we’re trying to do is amplify this effort. This type of program and these success stories can be seen again and again and each place will customize it a little bit, but there’ll be a base from which to operate from. So, charitable efforts to get people out of poverty aren’t having to go back and reinvent the wheel every time. They can pick up where others left off, and really, produce successes.”

How is the American Idea Foundation working with policymakers to advance pro-growth policies?

“This is the other thing that my foundation is working on, though COVID has presented a little bit of a problem, but I’ve spent a lot of my time touring poor communities around the country. I went with my friend, Bob Woodson, for a couple of years touring the poorest of the poor communities, just on listening tours and holding listening sessions. I’m trying to train other policymakers to do the same. It’s one of the things the American Idea Foundation is working and doing, which is getting people out of the comfort zones and out of their Congressional Districts, going into the poor communities. If you represent a rural area that’s not poor or a suburban area that is wealthy, go to these poor areas, listen, learn, observe, take away and build relationships, friendships, and alliances, and then go make a difference. That’s something that I was able to do and I feel I’ve really benefited from it.”

Why work on fighting poverty and expanding evidence-based policies after leaving Congress?

“It’s some of the most gratifying work that I did when I was in government, I always found myself — and when you’re Speaker of the House, you have to deal with national security and that was actually a big project of mine, but I always found on my discretionary policy time, I found myself going back to this issue. It’s just what really moves me.

“I’m a cradle Catholic, so this is a big part of your upbringing. It’s a big part of Catholic social teaching, so it’s something that I just always believed in and I just found that every time I had a little bit of spare time from managing members to scheduling legislation, this is where I wanted to spend my time. This is the legislation that really helped, that was fulfilling….

“And so, I decided after my speakership that I wanted to go work on making sure these laws were well executed. I want to make sure that these laws stand the test of time and get executed well. We didn’t write the laws as perfectly as I would want to, but that just means there’s more follow-up and more follow through. The American Idea Foundation is basically focused on this topic and in particular, it is focused on executing these laws and making sure that they’re properly designed.”

How can the Biden Administration successfully advance reforms that help the American people?

“They should start on incremental reforms that are confidence-building measures, that are bipartisan in nature, stay between the 40-yard lines and bang out a bunch of reforms. I know [President Biden’s] doing Executive Orders that appease the base. I don’t like those Executive Orders but that’s just what they’re going to do. Especially with impeachment coming down the path, that’s going to inflame the situation and it’s going to make it much more partisan, so stay within the 40-yard lines and bring a bunch of incremental reforms that get bipartisan buy-in.

“I pray to God that they keep the filibuster and my guess is [Republican Leader Mitch McConnell] will be able to get a deal to do that…. but bang out a bunch of incremental, bipartisan reforms as confidence-builders, that show the institutions are strong, that the country can still work, that we can reduce the rhetoric, and just start banging out some compromises and some reforms that fulfill the theme that Joe Biden put out in his inaugural speech. I was sitting not too far away from President Bush. The inaugural speech was pitch perfect, but, you know, words must be followed with actions. So, the actions that should follow the words are bipartisan, incremental reforms.”

How can America move forward, together, during these tough economic times?

“I think the biggest mistake that President Biden could make is using reconciliation to try and rip up the tax code that we just fixed. And look, I understand that progressives who play class warfare would like to do that but they will slow down economic growth. The tax reforms that passed were way overdue. They made us internationally competitive. They kept jobs here at home. They created more investment, but most importantly, the kind of an economy that these tax reforms created was the fastest wage growth among the lowest income-earners in the country.

“[President] Joe Biden will be able to get a nice recovery out of this. I think he needs to go easy on the regulatory footprint. I know that he’s going to go after Carbon and I think that’s regrettable but if [President] Joe Biden focuses on confidence-building measures before partisan measures and doesn’t go after the tax code, he will inherit an economy built for growth, particularly coming out of COVID and that will give people jobs. You have a lot of unemployed people, a lot of people in debt. You have to have fast economic growth to get people back into jobs and into the workforce, and to get wage growth, the policies are there, [President Biden] just needs to allow it to happen.”

By: AIF STAFF

Salt Lake City, UT – Earlier this month, Speaker Paul Ryan visited the Sorenson Impact Center to discuss its ongoing work to use data, public policy, investment, and community engagement to encourage positive social change. The Sorenson Impact Center has been instrumental in identifying and supporting promising developments in Opportunity Zones around the country and, like the American Idea Foundation, believes that evidence-based public policies and community involvement can yield positive outcomes so individuals can achieve their version of the American Dream.

While touring the Center and meeting with its leadership and staff, Speaker Ryan sat down for a conversation with CEO Geoff Davis and students from the University of Utah to discuss his experiences developing public policies rooted in evidence and data.

The full conversation, which primarily focused on the development of Opportunity Zones, effectively fighting poverty, and Social Impact Bonds, is accessible here and some highlights of Ryan’s remarks, (edited lightly for clarity), follow.

A Post-Elected Focus on Fighting Poverty, Scaling Proven Models of Success

“I spent most of my discretionary policymaking time focused on poverty and upper mobility. From my early days as House Budget Chair, as the Ways and Means Chair, and as Speaker, I worked on poverty policies at the macro-policymaking level and at the grassroots-level that focused on reigniting upward mobility, fighting poverty, and addressing root causes of poverty. And that was one of the most enjoyable policy things I ever did.

“When I retired, I wanted to make sure that the recent laws we passed: Opportunity Zones, Social Impact Bonds, and the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, were well executed and I just really enjoyed my time working on poverty issues from what I would call a center-right perspective.

“The American Idea Foundation is my [non-profit] foundation that focuses on these issues. It focuses on research in this area and on executing these laws properly. I [also] teach Economics at Notre Dame and I’m on the Board of the Laboratory for Economic Opportunity at Notre Dame. I work with Notre Dame economists at LEO, along with my foundation, to really push these ideas out and get them into the mainstream and out of the periphery. The American Idea Foundation is focused on attacking poverty, highlighting new poverty solutions, and helping scale these ideas and deploy these successful ideas and models nationwide.”

Ensuring Community Development, not just Profit, is a Goal for Opportunity Zone Investors:

“I think the Left would like nothing more — and I don’t mean to be partisan but I think there’s an ideological issue here, but there’s nothing more than they would like to say than: “This is just a tax abuse shelter. Let’s get rid of the idea.” I really believe more transparency and reporting gets you more accountability. And again, that’s a part that we wanted to have in law but we couldn’t because of something called the Byrd rule.

“This is why we’re working on some accountability tools to rate and measure opportunity zones, so that they mind the mission. The mission here in Opportunity Zones, from the person who put it in the tax code, is not to identify communities and push the poor out. It is to revitalize communities. It is to bring jobs. It is to bring solutions. It is to re-integrate civil society so that the people in these blighted neighborhoods or communities in both rural and inner-city America are actually rising out of poverty. And so, we want to make sure that the funds and the Opportunity Zones themselves understand the totality of the mission. We want people to make money. We want people to invest, but we also want them to understand the reason this law exists in the first place. In my opinion, transparency and reporting brings you more accountability about the best zones to invest in that are worth copying and replicating.”

Infusing New Ideas and Solutions into Poverty-Fighting Efforts

“Just like we’ve seen wonderful disruption in the technology space that has brought amazing innovations, new technologies and brought people closer together, I believe we can do the same in the poverty space. And so, I think the challenge for social impact bonds and the challenge for the poverty space is that we are disrupting a government monopoly of fighting poverty, and that [monopoly] is sort of wedded to the status quo. My friend Bob Woodson calls it the “poverty industrial complex,” which is that they’ve been doing the same thing for so long and it’s been funded, but unfortunately, it’s not producing the kinds of results that we need.

“We should be disrupting the poverty-solution space with the kind of private sector disruptions that have made technology and other aspects so lean, so efficient, so effective, and that needs to be brought to the poverty space. But you’re going to be facing a bureaucracy and entrenched interests. You’re being disruptive to the status quo and so, that just takes a lot of perseverance. It takes people coming together, and, frankly, [it takes] the private sector with private money and with solutions, disrupting this space.

“As a Catholic, I know most of you are LDS at Utah, but we call it “subsidiarity” as a Catholic. It’s a principle that basically believes, bringing people together with their various talents and skills, locally. Those closest to this problem bring the best solution. And so, this sense of civil society, where people are working together to solve problems gets you the best outcome. [It’s better] than phoning it in and having some big, macro, Washington, one size fits all approach.”

Changing Our Poverty Fighting Mindset to Focus on Results:

“The entire premise of the War on Poverty from the government’s point of view was focusing on efforts and focusing on inputs: How much money are we spending, how many programs are recreating, how much bureaucracy are we building and that was sort of the measurement of success.

“The whole philosophy behind the Sorenson Impact Center, as I understand it, and behind the American Idea Foundation is focusing on results, [focusing on] what achieves the goals of reigniting upward mobility, attacking the root causes of poverty, and getting people out of poverty. By disrupting all of this so it is focused not on inputs and not on effort, but on outcomes and results, our entire attitude and the way we approach these problems has to change. That is disruptive and that changes the status quo, for the better in my opinion but nevertheless, it is always challenging when you’re changing a generation-long status quo.

“Data driven measurable results… does de-emphasize government. The way I look at this is [the federal] government shouldn’t be manning the frontlines of the War on Poverty. It should be on the supply lines to bring resources like money and other things, but the people in the communities on the ground, learning from one another by using time-tested principles and processes are the ones who actually should actually man the frontlines of the War on Poverty and create the solutions. And that is a different kind of thinking from the government-centric approach.”

Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic with Impactful Policies; Rethinking Civil Society’s Role:

“I think, obviously, the need is even greater because we have spiking poverty, higher unemployment, and a great need. The way I look at [social] impact bonds is it brings the best of both worlds. It brings the idea of a social public good, getting people out of poverty, and fighting unique poverty problems with private sector know-how and private sector capital.

“One of the concerns I’ve always had, and I’ve mentioned this for years, is that in 1965 when the War on Poverty was launched, there was this great, magnificent effort, and it was incredibly well intended, to have government tackle the issue of poverty. It was a really, well-intended, noble exercise.

“The downside consequence of this, in my opinion, was it pushed the private sector out of the poverty space and said, “This is government’s space.” It told the rank-and-file taxpayer, the person driving down around the suburbs to the city and driving by the projects and the blighted areas, “Don’t worry about that, that’s the government’s job. Just pay your taxes and government will fix this.” And so, we ended up marginalizing the poor. We ended up displacing the poor and not integrating the poor in our communities and our solutions….

“We need to break this notion that poverty is not your problem as a citizen. It is your problem. It is your issue. And so, let’s get off this idea that this is just government and only government’s [problem]. The private sector needs to be involved. The private sector has so much talent and know-how that can really disrupt stale institutions that aren’t producing results, which were well intended, but resulted in a sort of misguided approach to fighting poverty.”

Evidence & Data as a Way to Bridge Ideological Divides:

“I’ve seen many instances in public policy debates where if you are equipped with unassailable data and evidence, people put the boxing gloves down. They put these sharp edges of ideology down and you can have a really nice, centrist-based conversation about what works and what doesn’t. MIECHV is a perfect example. It’s a long acronym but it’s basically nurses going into homes of poor moms on a pre-natal basis and helping them get prepared from motherhood, or having an infant. [It focuses on] health and welfare.

“It was rigorously designed by the Bush administration with an evidence-based reporting focus. President Bush created it. President Obama extended it and President Trump reauthorized it because this law, which basically was about getting nurses into poor communities, had such good evidence that Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump have supported this law and now it’s being deployed nationwide.”

Taking Opportunity Zones from an Idea to the Real World, Ensuring the Mission is Minded:

“Opportunity Zones are something that, frankly, I’ve worked on for over 20 years. I worked for Jack Kemp back in the early 1990’s working on what were then called “enterprise zones.” And so, to see that idea come to fruition, and we made sure that this was in the tax reform legislation as [we did] with social impact bonds these are things that we’ve been working on for many years. I saw, as Speaker of the House, the ability to put them into tax reform legislation because it’s something that I’d always want to see happen but we never had the ability to line up the political powers that be to get this done.

“What is exciting with Opportunity Zones is the amount of capital that has been deployed. The amount of capital that has been deployed to solve poverty problems and is being deployed in this space…. We always had an idea of having what I would call it sort of “reporting guardrails” to accompany the legislation to bring a lot of transparency to Opportunity Zones and to impact bonds, so with that transparency, you can learn as you go and you can have more accountability. We could not put that in the legislation because of the Senate rules, so that is an area where I think there’s room for improvement, which was always the intent.

“As a result, I think that’s one of the things that foundations [can do] and it’s one of the things that I work on at my Foundation. We can help take that place to bring accountability and transparency and to make sure that the mission is minded in the proper way as we always anticipated.”

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