Validating Reforms that Expand Opportunity

By: AIF Staff

One of the missions of the American Idea Foundation is to identify policies that expand opportunity for Americans and shine a light on them. This includes expanding opportunities for those individuals who are trying to get their lives back on track following interactions with the criminal justice system.

While there is no question that we must respect the rule of law, there is a growing consensus that the federal government can and should develop policies which ease individuals’ reentry into society. There is also a growing body of evidence and evaluations about how best the federal government can accomplish this. Given the American Idea Foundation’s emphasis on expanding evidence-based public policies with a track record of success, our President, Speaker Paul Ryan, took the opportunity to pen a foreword for a report, produced by the American Enterprise Institute, entitled: Rethinking Reentry.

The report details some of the innovative solutions being advanced to reform our criminal justice system and ease individuals’ transition back into society. In the foreword, Ryan, who also serves as a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, highlighted the First Step Act, which reformed our criminal justice system in a bipartisan way in 2018 and noted that the report’s authors “provide policymakers with the knowledge they need to understand what does and does not work in anti-recidivism efforts.”

As Ryan further explained:

“This volume provides a path forward on new ways to provide risk assessment, which is a key concern to policymakers. Importantly, it also takes on the decidedly less glamorous work of ensuring fidelity in program implementation. Evidence that new programs work is only as good as the faithful replication of program content by program implementers. This volume also identifies best practices on ensuring faithful replication of reentry programs. Finally, this volume ties it all together with a new model for prisoner reentry. Brent Orrell provides a road map to federal and state policymakers for a new approach to anti-recidivism. This new approach unifies a number of methodologies—such as case management, cognitive behavioral therapy, and substance abuse treatment. While modest in initial scope by cautiously calling for an experimental approach with rigorous evaluation, it calls for large-scale reform in how we approach prisoner reentry. If pursued and successful, it could fundamentally shift how we deliver prisoner reentry services in America.”

For those interested in expanding opportunity for those in need, and for those committed to fixing our criminal justice system, the entire report is worth a read and is accessible here. 

Washington, DC – Earlier this week, American Idea Foundation President Paul Ryan joined the American Enterprise Institute’s podcast: Banter, to discuss how capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty than any other economic system in history. Ryan, who is a distinguished visiting fellow in the practice of public policy at AEI, shared his thoughts on why millennials are attracted to socialism and what can be done to educate them on the perils of this political and economic theory. He also discussed how to address issues like income inequality and poverty.

The full podcast is available here and excerpts of Ryan’s responses follow.

Legislative efforts to expand opportunity and upward mobility:

“There are three laws that I worked to pass in my later years in government, when I was Speaker of the House, that work on these things. One was Opportunity Zones, which is a way of getting private capital into the poorest communities in America to revitalize communities. The second one was something called Social Impact Bonds, which uses private-sector solutions to seek to solve social problems. And then the Evidence Act, which is focused on Evidence-Based Policymaking and opening up the federal poverty programs for analysts to use data and analytics to go with what works best. My point there is it ends up validating that our principles work, that personal responsibility and incentives do matter. And these are new policies we put in place, or that the ink is barely drying on these laws, that I think will take the center-right principles and apply them to the problems of the day and help us get some serious profound results.”

Countering socialism’s rising popularity among younger Americans:

“The current generation has what I would call a very historically ignorant, romantic attachment to socialism. It’s just basic emotions and altruism, that is how I see it…. It’s a soft form of collectivism, so it just seems “cool.” I don’t think [most younger Americans] even really know what it actually is.

“But so, it definitely is in vogue…. We have work to do – and this is what my American Idea Foundation does and this is what I’m working on here at AEI – to make sure that young people have the scales lifted from their eyes so that they can see the perils and the pitfalls of socialism and understand that democratic capitalism, free enterprise, whatever you want to call it, is the best possible tool for upward mobility, for fighting poverty, for human beings that man has ever created….”

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“Capitalism is the best possible weapon against poverty and for upward mobility than any other system that humans can organize themselves upon.”

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“I really do believe there is a really good case for very classical liberalism among our nation’s youth. They just don’t quite see it yet. Their own personal experiences and preferences and needs and wants all speak to freedom of choice, free self-determination, and yet, they’re going to vote for politicians who want to deny them those things in all these basic areas? It doesn’t jive. It doesn’t fit.”

On Universal Basic Income:

“I understand the intellectual appeal. I do not support the idea because I think it lacks an aspect of self-worth and self and personal responsibility. I think it lacks a proper incentive structure for people to move themselves up and out in life and to feel that fulfillment in their lives. So, it’s sort of a hollow, materialistic solution to what is a bigger, deeper problem.”

On capitalism growing the economic pie and promoting opportunity for all:

“My elevator pitch on that is. What do you want? Do you want a government designed to promote equality of opportunity, or do you want a government designed to promote equality of outcome?

“These are two very different kinds of governments. Our system is designed for equality of opportunity. A socialist system is designed for equality of outcomes. And my pitch to young people is: When you have to have the government as your centerpiece in life, it has to be the core of everything, and take it from me – someone who spent 25 years in government, 20 of them in elected government – it’s not going to be done so equitably. It’s going to be cronyism, corruption, and, and you’ll have even greater disparity. You’ll have the super-rich, the super-poor, and very little in between. Again, look at countries like Venezuela.

“And so, the best solution to income disparity is more economic wealth, more upward mobility, better education, turn on the escalators of opportunity and of upward mobility. That is how you tackle the wealth gap. You bridge the wealth gap by growing the pie and making sure that everyone can have access to bigger slices of an ever-growing pie, versus trying to have government we distribute slices of a shrinking pie.”

Washington, DC – This morning at a symposium on the “Next Generation of Evidence,” hosted by the Brookings Institution, former Speaker Paul Ryan shared his thoughts on the Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission, recognizing the work of Co-Chairs Ron Haskins and Katherine Abraham and highlighting the work of the American Idea Foundation to expand opportunity.

Excerpts of Speaker Ryan’s remarks follow.

On the Evolution of Data and the Success of the Evidence Based Policymaking Commission:

“A few years back, we were getting frustrated in Congress about the lack of evidence in policymaking. Then, we were kind of getting stuck in ideological arguments on how best to fix problems and fight poverty through programs that were already implemented because we had very little data to prove what was working and what was not working. We saw what happened when we actually had measurements, and we felt that was the future. So, we decided to form a commission and I recached over to a friend of mine, Patty Murray, to work on legislation that ultimately got passed.”

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“[The Evidence Based Policymaking Commission] is a commission that actually produced a very good report, and we put much of their recommendations into law and so, all I want to say is that I salute the next generation that is assembled here today to promote evidence-based policymaking. This is the future, the sort of R&D factory for effective policy that we were envisioning. And as a former politician – or as a recovering politician, I should say – this work helps leapfrog partisan, ideological arguments and helps us get to what works: Where is the evidence? How do we make a difference? How do we effectively steward taxpayer dollars? And so, I’m very excited about what you’re all doing. I’m very excited about the next generation of evidence-based policymaking, and I’m very excited that Ron and Catherine Abraham, on behalf of the commission, are going to receive this award.”

How the American Idea Foundation will utilize Data and evidence:

“In my vocational portfolio, there are three things that I am doing: I am working on these issues at AEI, I have my foundation, and I also teach college at Notre Dame. I work with a department there called LEO, the Lab of Economic Opportunity, and we’re doing RCT’s with different charities and it was one of the economists there who gave me the idea of the commission.”

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“What I have learned in my travels across the country and learning about this space was that there really wasn’t a good connector of the grassroots poverty fighters on the ground — who are well-meaning and hard-working, but don’t have access to capital or to academics. They want to do RCT’s and help people but don’t really have access to the other side so that is what the American Idea Foundation is basically going to be. It’s going to be a connector to try and connect all these pieces so that we can have poverty solutions that are proven and effective, and that can be scalable and replicated.

A Role for Government and Civil Society in Expanding Opportunity:

“I think there’s a huge space for civil society and philanthropy and the private sector to play. Absolutely. They’re going to try some innovative ideas that may not be right for government at the moment, and that’s where philanthropy can come in and show programs that actually work and are effective. Philanthropy is probably the key piece of all of this because it can finance programs that work.

“But I also think now, with that next generation coming up in evidence-based policymaking, it is going to be so much easier to move the needle on poverty and to scale programs that are effective. I think that’s going to inform public policymakers, so that public policy is not going in the wrong direction but in the same direction.”

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“There’s going to be clearly a role for government. [It will be] more of a supply line role, than a frontline role…. What I do not think should be done is one [government] replacing the other [civil society]. I think they should come with each other.”