Washington Leadership Series: The Future of Higher Education

David Walker discusses his new book, Comeback America

“Americans have a big-government appetite and want a small-government tax payment,” said David M. Walker, president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Thursday as part of the Institute’s Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series. “It won’t work,” he continued, and people who think that it will work are “delusionary and would get an ‘F’ in math!” In his new book, Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility, Walker argues for spending freezes, a presidential fiscal commission, higher taxes, and a total reformation of how the government conducts business.

“There is no party of fiscal responsibility,” Walker told moderator Clive Crook, Washington columnist at the Financial Times, adding that several members of Congress are “profiles in cowardice.” Walker was particularly struck by the congressional quagmire on health care reform: “If there is one thing that will bankrupt America,” he said, “it’s out-of-control health care.” And Walker was quick to point out that the United States spends double per capita on health care compared with the rest of the world—with below-average results. “If health care were a house, it would be mortgaged to the hilt and headed for foreclosure.”

Walker was just as hard on the tax code. He detailed his own vexing experience as a certified public accountant filling out his family’s taxes by hand and without software. “Because I want to challenge Congress to do the same,” Walker exclaimed. “If congressmen had to do their own taxes, we’d have tax reform real quick.”

But Walker did express a great deal of hope that financial responsibility is possible, because, as he put it, “the majority of Americans are in the sensible center.” He also noted that there may finally be the political will to make big reforms because “people now know what a rainy day looks like.”

Tom Daschle and Nigel Crisp Discuss Global Health Care

“It’ll be some time before we can look toward passing something truly comprehensive,” said former Senator Tom Daschle as part of the Institute’s Global Health Roundtable Series on Thursday. In the aftermath of the Democrats’ loss in the special election in Massachusetts, the future of US health care reform was on everybody’s minds. “The fear-mongers in this country won,” Daschle continued, referring to reform opponents’ claims of death panels, government take-overs, and skyrocketing costs. “I think Americans just can’t accept that we aren’t the best,” he said of the health care system. Daschle, who is now advising the administration on health care policy, went on to lambaste the congressional supermajority necessary to passing legislation. Contentious issues requiring a supermajority—from climate change to nuclear proliferation to health care—are “increasingly going to make us less relevant,” he lamented.

Daschle also expressed concern that the public conflates technological progress with excellent health care: “Technology in and of itself is not a good index for quality of care.” It was a point echoed by Lord Nigel Crisp, global health expert, member of the House of Lords in England, and author of Turning the World Upside Down: The Search for Global Health in the 21st Century; Crisp is a proponent of learning from developing nations instead of just bringing science to them. “Western medicine and technology is not what is needed alone,” he said. Crisp pointed to programs that incentivize the poor to get health care (as a pre-condition of benefits or of school enrollment), countries where doctors are trained quickly in specific procedures rather than staying in school for a decade, and communities where health and wellness are valued as a part of everyday life. “It is no surprise,” said Crisp, “that people with so little are so innovative.” He also reminded the audience that global health is not simply a moral duty or a matter of charity. “It is self-interest,” he said, noting that global pandemics have no borders.

Daschle concurred, adding: “There’s an idea that the Third World is irrelevant and dependent,” when in fact developing nations are “relevant and co-dependent.”

Romesh Ratnesar and Michael Meyer: The Berlin Wall Revisted

The Aspen Institute 2009

Washington, DC, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton talks DC statehood, budget, legislation, and license plates with WTOP Radio’s Mark Plotkin

“My greatest frustration is going places where they say, ‘You mean, you don’t have any voting rights?’” said DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton at an Institute event Monday. In what was often a heated exchange with WTOP Radio’s Mark Plotkin, Norton discussed her role in Congress as twofold: working for the people of DC to achieve goals like more jobs and better health care, and working toward the larger goal of DC statehood. Norton lamented the lack of enthusiasm for DC rights among her fellow Democrats in Congress, saying other members often forget that she doesn’t have the vote and will even remind her that it is time to cast a ballot. “They’ve given meaningful lip-service, but I’m sitting over here without the vote!” said Norton of House Democrats. “If you’re in the majority, act like it.”

Meanwhile, Plotkin was keen to address the symbols of statehood, from advocating for DC state statues in the Capitol’s rotunda to promoting the “taxation without representation” license plates. “We are supposed to be a beacon of democracy around the world,” said Plotkin. Adding that “we are truly the last colony,” he noted President Obama’s “palpable lack of concern for the District of Columbia.” But Norton wasn’t interested in waging battles over issues of image that could ultimately compromise her goodwill among the voting members of Congress or the president—people she will need on her side in an eventual push for statehood. “I don’t want to be seen as just chasing symbols,” said Norton.

To find out more about this event, Contact the Aspen Institute.

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: After Copenhagen: Climate Change Policy and the Green Economy

After Copenhagen: Climate Change Policy and the Green Economy featuring White House Climate Czar Carol Browner. Moderated by Economist Correspondent Vijay Vaitheeswaran.

Audience Q and A: After Copenhagen: Climate Change Policy and the Green Economy from Innovation Economy on Vimeo.

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Leadership and the Innovation Economy

Leadership and the Innovation Economy: Finding the Political Will to Work Together

Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Robert Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Steve Case, Co-Founder, America Online; Chairman and CEO, Revolution; Chairman, the Case Foundation U.S. Senator Mark Warner U.S. Representative Bart Gordon U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar
Moderator: James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic

Panel: Leadership and the Innovation Economy: Finding the Political Will to Work Together from Innovation Economy on Vimeo.

Audience Q and A: Leadership and the Innovation Economy: Finding the Political Will to Work Together from Innovation Economy on Vimeo.

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Risk, Return & Global Recession: Who Will Invest in Tomorrow’s Big Ideas?

Sue Siegel, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Austan Goolsbee, Staff Director and Chief Economist, President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Alberto Ibargüen, President and CEO, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Dr. Sophie Vandebroek, CTO of Xerox and President, Xerox Innovation Group
Justin Rattner, CTO of Intel
Moderator: Jeffrey Brown, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Panel


Q&A

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Creativity, Innovation, and American Leadership

Presentation by Walter Isaacson, President and CEO, The Aspen Institute

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Innovation, Competitiveness and the Future of the American Corporation

Panel: Innovation, Competitiveness and the Future of the American Corporation


Q&A

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Building the Infrastructure for Progress

Panel: Building the Infrastructure for Progress

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Are We Doing Enough to Support Science in America?

Panel: Are We Doing Enough to Support Science in America?



Q&A

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Educating the Next Generation of Innovators

Michelle Rhee, Chancellor, District of Columbia Public Schools Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Department of Education John Hennessy, President, Stanford University
Moderator: Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Panel: Educating the Next Generation of Innovators



Q & A

Intel and the Aspen Institute present the Innovation Economy Conference: Larry Summers

Innovation and Economic Growth, a Conversation with Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.
Moderator: Judy Woodruff, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer