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In his new book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity (Times Books, 2009), Matt Miller argues that political and business leaders have failed to prepare the United States for economic crises because they are slaves to dead ideas.
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These dead ideas include the notions that higher taxes hurt the economy, that free trade is always good, and that money follows merit. Miller also offers up a catalogue of "tomorrow's destined ideas" that he believes will eventually replace their dead counterparts.
Miller's presentation will be followed by commentary by Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, AEI's Michael Barone, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former chief adviser to Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. AEI's Kevin A. Hassett will moderate.
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8:30 a.m. |
Registration and Breakfast |
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9:00 |
Presenter: |
Matt Miller, Center for American Progress |
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Discussants: |
Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard |
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Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former chief economic adviser to McCain-Palin 2008 |
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Moderator: |
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10:30 |
Adjournment |
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American Enterprise Institute
1150 Seventeenth St., NW
WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 4, 2009--The current economic crisis is the product of dead ideas, or so argues Matt Miller in The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity (Times Books, 2009). At a conference at
AEI on February 3, Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress, suggested several ideas that should be buried for once and
for all such as that "free trade is 'good' (no matter how many people
get hurt)" and that "taxes hurt the economy (and they're always too
high)." Otherwise, he warned, we risk a "backlash against capitalism"
if we fail to address the "legitimate anxiety" of those whose lives
capitalism disrupts. Miller advised three steps to address this anxiety: Miller concluded that he was not worried much about waxing socialism
as much as rising protectionism, which he described as a natural
response to the turbulence of the global economy. Global trade and
capitalism have benefited the whole world, he said, but it is necessary
to jettison the "dead ideas" he described in order to secure its
benefits. Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard was quick to offer a
"dead idea" of his own. "Unions are good for America" is a common
misconception that he believes should be interred. Barnes also blamed
many of the education woes lamented by Miller on the "teachers'
unions," which are, he said, some of the "most retrograde institutions
in America." John McCain's top domestic policy adviser during the late campaign, Douglas Holtz-Eakin described his initial reaction to The Tyranny of Dead Ideas
as leaving him "consumed with rage." Specifically, Holtz-Eakin took
umbrage at the premise "that government is a benign, efficient thing"
and also at the "misplaced notion [that] every time you see inequality,
you have a problem." There is no guarantee of constantly rising
prosperity, he pointed out, and "every generation has to set itself on
the course" to leave America a more prosperous nation than they found
it. AEI's Michael Barone asked
the inevitable question arising from Miller's public policy
conclusions: "just how far do you want to go?" Barone compared Miller's
conclusions to a train on the track toward a "European welfare
state"--it may not end at "socialism," but that is its logical
destination. Regarding Miller's concerns about "social insurance,"
Barone said that historically "attempts to eliminate all risk have
often turned out to be very risky indeed." --JOSH EBOCH For video, audio, and event information, visit www.aei.org/event1879. For media inquiries, contact Veronique Rodman at 202.862.4870 or vrodman@aei.org. ###
Fred Barnes is the executive editor of The Weekly Standard. From 1985 to 1995, he served as the senior editor and White House correspondent for the New Republic. He covered the Supreme Court and the White House for the Washington Star before moving on to the Baltimore Sun in 1979. He served as the national political correspondent for the Sun and wrote the "Presswatch" media column for The American Spectator. He is the host, along with Mort Kondracke, of The Beltway Boys on the Fox News Channel. Mr. Barnes appears regularly on Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume. From 1988 to 1998 he was a regular panelist on the McLaughlin Group. He has also appeared on Nightline, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI, where he studies politics, American government, and campaigns and elections. The principal coauthor of the biennial Almanac of American Politics (National Journal Group), he has written many books on American politics and history, including, most recently, Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers (Random House/Crown Forum, 2007). Mr. Barone is also a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and a Fox News Channel contributor.
Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. He is also a weekly columnist for Bloomberg. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at Columbia Business School. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain during the 2000 presidential primaries and the 2008 presidential campaign. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation's Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including Toward Fundamental Tax Reform (AEI Press, 2005). He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. Mr. Hassett's popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS's Morning Show, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin served most recently as the director of domestic and economic policy to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign. He has also recently been a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, the director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, and the Paul A. Volcker Chair in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that, Mr. Holtz-Eakin served as the sixth director of the Congressional Budget Office, where he was appointed for a four-year term beginning on February 4, 2003. He previously served for eighteen months as the chief economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to that, Mr. Holtz-Eakin served as a trustee professor of economics at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, where he also served as the chairman of the department of economics and associate director of the Center for Policy Research.
Matt Miller is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a contributing editor at Fortune, and the host of Left, Right & Center, public radio's popular week-in-review program. He also serves as a senior adviser at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he serves clients in the firm’s health care, strategy, public sector, education, and nonprofit practices. Mr. Miller was also a senior adviser in the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995. From 1991 to 1992 he was a White House Fellow, serving as the special assistant to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Miller's first book, The Two Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems In Ways Liberals And Conservatives Can Love (Perseus Publishing, 2003) was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go Of The Old Ways Of Thinking To Unleash A New Prosperity (Times Books, 2009).
