Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TIME
FOR OUR
Jefferson Memorial,
Washington, D.C. INTRODUCTION
Table of Contents
2 12
24 34
BRING O P P O R T U N I T Y, C R O N Y I S M ,
THEM IN AND CONSERVATIVE REFORM
Thor’s Hammer, Navajo Loop,
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
Silver Lake, UT
“FREEDOM DOESN’T
MEAN YOU’RE
ON YOUR OWN. “What’s Next for Conservatives?”
FREEDOM MEANS REMARKS TO THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
U.S. Senator Mike Lee
TOGETHER.”
Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to losing their jobs, wages, and hours. And That is the question I would like to try to
be back at the Heritage Foundation. when in July the president exempted big answer today.
businesses from the hardships of this
It has been quite a month in Washington. One of conservatives’ defining virtues is
13 law, but not ordinary Americans, I felt I
our insistence on learning from history.
14
had to take a stand.
It began with our effort to stop Obamacare And to help answer the question, “what’s
— a goal that all Republicans share even I am proud of my friend Ted Cruz and next?,” I think the most instructive history
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CONSERVATIVES?
CHAPTER NAME
the Washington establishment in the will not produce that agenda. And so, opportunities.
late 1970s, and our challenge to the re-expressing conservative convictions This new agenda must recognize that
There were Professors Robert Bork and once again, conservatives must.
establishment today. to fit the time – has not been done since. This opportunity crisis presents itself in work for able-bodied adults is not a
Antonin Scalia, challenging the received Conservative activists and intellectuals are three principal ways: necessary evil, but an essential pathway
We must.
Much of the difference can be found in wisdom of constitutional interpretation still providing new energy and producing to personal happiness and prosperity.
what happened between 1976 and 1980 laid down by the Warren Court. new ideas. But on the whole, elected And three recent efforts show that we 1. immobility among the poor, trapped
– the hard, heroic work of translating Republicans and candidates have not held still can. in poverty; And it should also force Republicans and
conservatism’s bedrock principles into There were think tanks like the American up our end. Democrats to acknowledge that there is
new and innovative policy reforms. Enterprise Institute and the new Cato Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, and Jeff Flake’s 2. insecurity in the middle class, where another marriage debate in this country
Institute, and a flowering of grassroots Instead of emulating those earlier crusade against earmarks, Paul Ryan’s families just can’t seem to get ahead; – one concerning fatherless children,
In The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk organizations around the country. conservatives, too many Republicans heroic work on Medicare reform, and economic inequality, and broken
observed that “conservatives inherit from today mimic them – still advocating Rand Paul’s stand against domestic 3. and cronyist privilege at the top, communities - that deserves as much
[Edmund] Burke a talent for re-expressing And of course, in the middle of it all, there policies from a bygone age. where political and economic elites
drone-strike authority all demonstrate public attention as the other.
their convictions to fit the time.” were Paul Weyrich, Ed Fuelner, Joseph Coors unfairly profit at everyone else’s
that thoughtful, idea-driven conservatism
and The Heritage Foundation, specifically It’s hard to believe, but by the time we reach expense. Second, we need a new, comprehensive
is as powerful today as it has ever been.
That is precisely what the conservatives founded to chart a new, conservative November 2016, we will be about as far – anti-cronyism agenda, to break up the
of the late 1970s did. The ideas that direction for public policy in America. chronologically speaking – from Reagan’s It’s time for another Great Debate, and we The Republican Party should tackle these corrupt nexus of big government, big
defined and propelled the Reagan election as Reagan’s election was from D-Day! should welcome all input. three crises head on. business, and big special interests.
Together, that generation of conservatives
Ostler Peak, We need a new corporate tax code and The first and most important policy goal reform plan – led by Representatives These bills won’t solve every problem
Uinta Mountains, UT regulatory system to eliminate lobbyists’ Republicans must adopt to improve the Steve Scalise and Phil Roe. The Heritage under the sun. Raising a family isn’t
loopholes and giveaways, level the lives of middle-class families is, and will Foundation proposed its own healthcare supposed to be easy.
playing field between businesses, big remain, the full repeal of Obamacare. reform package as part of the Saving the
and small, and foster a dynamic, globally American Dream plan, which I introduced But each would restore to working
competitive private sector. It’s important to understand why. in the Senate last year. It included, among families more of the freedom they deserve
other things, a universal tax credit to buy to pursue their happiness: to earn a good
We need to end subsidies that unfairly Health care is one of the main reasons health insurance, with extra help for those living and build a good life.
favor some businesses and industries over why the cost of living in the middle class is with lower incomes.
others. And the Republican Party must increasing too quickly for many Americans Perhaps the most basic challenge facing
make a fundamental commitment to end to keep up. At the same time, it is the main I know my friend Paul Ryan and others are middle-class families is how expensive
its support for corporate welfare in any reason why government spending and working on their own healthcare plans it has become for couples to simply start
form – including for the Big Banks. debt are out of control. that will continue to improve the debate. and grow their families: the exploding
costs of raising children.
The Left today no longer represents the The law the Democrats enacted on And this is as it should be.
“little guy,” but the crony clients of the a party-line vote in 2010 is going to According to the Department of
ever-expanding special-interest state. make both of those problems worse - Too many in Washington seem to believe Agriculture, the cost of raising a child
Progressives have become the Party of accelerating healthcare costs both for that on any issue, Republicans should to maturity in the United States today
Wall Street, K Street, and Pennsylvania families and the government. either have one plan – one that everyone is about $300,000. Even adjusting for
Avenue. We must become the party of supports in lockstep – or no plans. But unity inflation, that’s 15% higher than in our
Main Street, everywhere. At the same time, Obamacare poses cannot come at the expense of creativity. parents’ generation.
very serious threats to our constitutional The day will come when Republicans need
Which brings me to the third essential piece system, to the relationship between a healthcare plan – today we need ten! But even that number doesn’t count
of our new agenda: a new conservatism of Washington and the states, to individual foregone wages, or child care and college,
the working and middle class. liberty and conscience rights, to the Conservatives are supposed to believe in both of which have seen rampant inflation
strength of our economy, and to the the wisdom of markets. So let’s trust the in recent decades as well.
17 Today, working families’ take-home pay quality of our healthcare system. marketplace of ideas. If we want policy 18
is flat. innovation, we need to innovate policy! All told, according to demography writer
That puts healthcare right at the center of Jonathan Last, “you’re talking $1.1 million
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CONSERVATIVES?
Actually, when it comes to Social Security Today, if a working mom or dad stays late Or they can choose a home in a more
and Medicare, parents pay twice: first at the office on Monday and Tuesday, and affordable neighborhood so far away from
when they pay their payroll taxes, just instead of receiving extra pay wants to get work that they miss soccer games, piano
like everyone else, and then again, by compensated by leaving early on Friday to recitals, and family dinner while stuck in
bearing the enormous costs of raising spend the afternoon with the kids… that gridlocked traffic.
their kids, who will grow up to not only could be violating federal law.
pay taxes, but cure diseases, and invent The solution is not more government-
the next iPhone, and most importantly, That sounds unfair, especially to parents. subsidized mortgages or housing
19 provide their parents with grandkids! But how do we know for sure? Because programs. A real solution involves building
20
Congress gave a special exemption from more roads.
So my plan eliminates this anti-family that law for government employees.
More roads, bridges, lanes, and mass-
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CONSERVATIVES?
Bring Them In
It has been more than 50 years since Because true poverty is not so much an
President Johnson declared the federal absence of money as it is an absence of
government’s “war on poverty,” yet for all the opportunity, an effective anti-poverty
trillions of dollars spent to create a dizzying agenda must focus on helping the most
array of national programs, the poverty vulnerable and underprivileged Americans
rate has hardly budged. Standards of living access those social and economic networks
have improved, and government transfers where human opportunities are created—
have made poverty more tolerable, but far our free enterprise economy and voluntary
23 too many families, neighborhoods, and civil society. This means reforming the 24
communities remain stuck at the bottom of poverty traps put in place by misguided
our economy, often for generations. While government policies, including those that
BRING THEM IN
BRING THEM IN
the Left clings to the same big government, penalize marriage, discourage work, shut-
top-down policies that have failed since out families from affordable housing, trap
the 1960s, conservatives are in a position low-income children in failing schools, and
to offer a new, comprehensive anti-poverty leave reformed offenders languishing in
and upward-mobility agenda designed prison rather than helping them transition
not simply to help people in poverty, but back into their homes, their communities,
to help and empower them to get out. and the economy.
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
DOESN’T MEAN Thank you very much. last week, the Census Bureau reported that less likely to get married and stay married,
YOU’RE ON YOUR
today, more than 49 million Americans still that 30% of single mothers are living in
It’s always great to join with the Heritage live below the poverty line. poverty, and that their children are less
Foundation in any context. But being a part
25 of this Anti-Poverty Forum is a true privilege. Today, a boy born in the bottom 20% of our
likely to rise out of poverty themselves 26
when they grow up.
Members of my staff have been here all income scale has a 42% chance of staying
OWN. FREEDOM
day, taking copious notes, and hopefully there as an adult. According to the O.E.C.D., We know that participation in civil society,
BRING THEM IN
BRING THEM IN
collecting all the business cards and white the United States is third from the bottom volunteering, and religion are deteriorating
papers they can get their hands on. of advanced countries in terms of upward in poor neighborhoods – compounding
economic mobility. economic hardship with social isolation.
It is of course a tragedy that we have to be
here at all. Though the Bible says the poor A recent study in Oregon found that the And we know these trends cut across
MEANS WE’RE
will always be with us, it’s still hard to accept Medicaid program – which provides health boundaries of race, ethnicity, and geography.
why, in a nation with a $15 trillion economy, insurance to the poor – produces basically
the poor are still with us. no health improvements for its beneficiaries. All of this might lead some to the depressing
conclusion that – 50 years after Johnson’s
And yet, as we approach the 50th A study last December on the Head speech - America’s war on poverty has failed.
ALL IN THIS
anniversary of President Lyndon Start program, issued by the Obama But the evidence proves nothing of the sort.
Johnson’s famous “War on Poverty” Administration itself, found that what few
speech, we all know the statistics. academic benefits three- and four-year olds On the contrary, I believe the American
do gain from the program all but disappear people are poised to launch a new, bold,
Despite trillions of taxpayer dollars spent to by end of the first grade. and heroic offensive in the war on poverty…
eradicate poverty since the late 1960s, the if a renewed conservative movement has
poverty rate has hardly budged. And just We know that poor men and women are the courage to lead it.
First, let’s be clear about one thing. In a free market economy and voluntary civil It distrusts and denies the bonds of government’s job was to make sure of it. These public goods weren’t designed to Today, many of those obstructions are
society, no matter your career or your cause, cooperation and service that represent make poverty more tolerable – but to make themselves government policies. These
The United States did not formally launch your success depends on your service. The the highest expression of our dignity. This is an important point, for it more temporary. They reduced the time policies unintentionally discourage almost
our War on Poverty in 1964, but in 1776: only way to get ahead is to help others progressives to learn and conservatives it took to get products to market, increased every positive step underprivileged families
when we declared our independence, and do the same. The only way to look out for Look at any thriving marriage, friendship, to remember: the constitutionally limited access to banks and land, and increased can take toward social mobility and
the self-evident and equal rights of all men yourself is to look out for your neighbors. church, charity, Little League, historical but indispensable role that government the speed at which knowledge could be economic security.
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. society, theater company, PTA, played in America’s original war on developed and shared.
Together, these twin networks of service- neighborhood or business. What makes poverty. That role was best expressed Today’s government-centric system
For more than two hundred years, the based success enabled millions of America exceptional – and life worth living by a president who understood poverty Poor farmers and trappers in Lincoln’s penalizes marriage, which a mountain
United States – through trial and error, ordinary Americans to make our economy - is not simply individual freedom, but the better than most. Mid-West were no worse at their trades of evidence now shows is the single
through good times and bad – has waged very wealthy and our society truly rich… heroic, empowering communities that than their more affluent counterparts most empowering social and economic
the most successful war on poverty in the long before Lyndon Johnson tried to free individuals form. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln told Congress back east. They just didn’t enjoy the same opportunity there is. It also penalizes low-
history of the world. The United States has do better by growing and centralizing that the “leading object” of American access to networks of human, social, and income workers for making more money
become so wealthy that it is easy to forget government authority. Free enterprise and civil society operate government was: economic capital. by drastically reducing benefits at arbitrary
that, as Michael Novak once noted, most in the natural human space - between the points along the income-scale. Because of
affluent Americans can actually remember These human – and humane – networks isolated individual and the impersonal “to elevate the condition of men - to lift In the same way, poor children today do not these poverty traps, single mothers near the
when their own families were poor. empowered Americans, unlike any people state - where we live, and love, and artificial weights from all shoulders, to lack the ability to acquire the knowledge poverty line, for instance, can face effective
on earth or in history, to protect not just flourish… where everyone can earn a good clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, and skills necessary to flourish in our marginal tax rates of 80 or even 90 percent.
Upward mobility has never been easy. themselves but each other from both living and build a good life… where the to afford all an unfettered start and a fair market economy and civil society. But they
It has always and everywhere required material want and social isolation. strong and the vulnerable alike can pursue chance, in the race of life.” absolutely lack the same access to the Thus, in poor communities, government
backbreaking work, personal discipline, their happiness, and find it… together. networks of human opportunity where that dependence often atrophies community
and at least a little luck. But if upward Now, progressive ideologues reject all this. In a single sentence, Lincoln explains knowledge and those skills are acquired. interdependence, fraying the bonds
mobility was not universal in America, it They do not trust individuals to join together In America, government did not invade or precisely what poverty is, and what between moms and dads and neighbors
was the norm. voluntarily and organically to improve each replace that space. Government protected government ought to do about it. Properly considered, then, the war on and friends and pastors and teachers, old
other’s lives and meet common challenges. and expanded it. That is how we proved poverty is not so much about lifting people and young, native and immigrant.
From our very Founding, we not only to the world that freedom doesn’t mean As Lincoln knew first hand, true poverty up. It’s about bringing people in.
27 fought a war on poverty – we were As President Obama said in his second “you’re on your own.” Freedom means was not for most people an absence of Meanwhile, education policies leave low- 28
winning. The tools Americans relied on to inaugural: “we’re all in this together.” money, but an absence of opportunity And so the challenge to conservatives income parents and children trapped in
overcome poverty were what became the – a lack of access to those social and today is to rethink the war on poverty along failing schools. Policies ranging from welfare
BRING THEM IN
BRING THEM IN
twin pillars of American exceptionalism: “No single person can train all the math The conservative vision for America is not economic networks where human these lines, to bring into our economy to health care to criminal justice are only
our free enterprise economy and and science teachers we’ll need to equip an Ayn Rand novel. It’s a Norman Rockwell opportunities are created. and society the individuals, families, and exacerbating the explosion of fatherlessness
voluntary civil society. our children for the future, or build the painting, or a Frank Capra movie: a nation communities that have for five decades plaguing lower-income communities.
roads and networks and research labs “of plain, ordinary kindness, and a little Then, as now, people were not isolated been unfairly locked out.
We usually refer to the free market and civil that will bring new jobs and businesses looking out for the other fellow, too.” because they were poor – they were poor And so conservatives need a new,
society as “institutions.” But really, they to our shores. Now, more than ever, we mostly because they were isolated. Nineteen-sixty-four wasn’t the year comprehensive anti-poverty agenda
are networks of people and information must do these things together, as one Organic communities formed within the Americans started fighting poverty; it was that not only corrects – but transcends –
and opportunity. nation and one people.” free market and civil society’s networks And so, in America’s original war on the year we started losing that fight. To start existing policies.
of opportunity are not threats that poor poverty, government did not give the winning again, conservatives are going to
What makes these networks uniquely But by “together,” of course, he meant only families need more protection from. They poor other people’s money. It gave them have to lead the way - not simply by offering Anyone looking for ideas would do
powerful is that they impel everyone – “government.” are blessings that poor families need access to other people. criticism, but alternatives. well to visit my home state of Utah,
regardless of race, religion, or wealth - to more access to. where a combination of smart, efficient
depend not simply on themselves or the This discredited mindset – which insists In Lincoln’s era – even during a cataclysmic Our job is to identify the obstructions that government, a growing, prosperous
government, but on each other. For all collective action can only mean state And that’s what America was all about. war that was itself a struggle for human impede Americans’ access to our market economy, an active and faithful civil
America’s reputation for individualism action - is itself a kind of poverty. It rejects Since the dawn of time, rich and powerful freedom and opportunity – that meant economy and civil society and clear them. society, and perhaps the most successful
and competition, our nation has from the social solidarity in favor of political men, and friends of the king, always had dredging rivers, building canals and And if we’re looking for impediments to private welfare system in the world, have
beginning been built on a foundation of coercion, and voluntary communities access to opportunity. What made America cutting roads. It meant the Homestead mobility and opportunity, we’ve certainly made Salt Lake the most upwardly mobile
community and cooperation. for professional community organizers. different is that here, everyone did, and Act and land-grant universities. come to the right place! region in the entire country.
But first and foremost, we should at least income families access to educational Tower of Babel Monument,
pledge to do no more harm. and health opportunities somewhere Arches National Park, UT
besides the federal bureaucracy.
There is no good reason the federal
government should maintain 79 In Utah, for instance, our legislature has
separate means-tested programs. created a special task force to study the
There is no good reason why almost prospects of “charity care” – affordable
none of these programs feature the medical services for poor families
kind of work-requirements that helped provided not by government but by
transition millions of Americans into individuals, businesses, non-profit
jobs after the 1996 reform. And there groups, and local communities. That
is no good reason federal policy should model might not work in every state, but
reward states for higher spending every state should have the freedom to
rather than improved results. solve problems their own way, according
to their own values and priorities.
And so one of our first priorities should be
to simply get existing federal programs We need similar reforms to open up our
under control. And I am working with elementary and secondary schools, giving
the Heritage Foundation and several underprivileged parents and children
colleagues on legislation to do just that. access to the same opportunities that
wealthy Americans take for granted.
Second, just as we cannot spend our way
out of poverty, we cannot really cut our We need to expand access to higher
way out, either. We need to fundamentally education, to reform our accreditation
fix the system so that every dollar we do system to allow federal aid to follow
spend actually connects underprivileged students to new and diverse options:
29 families to new opportunities in the free customized courses, programs, tests, on- 30
market and civil society. line and on-campus, even professional
training and apprenticeships.
BRING THEM IN
BRING THEM IN
One way to do this would be to block-
grant Medicaid funds to the states, Another area ripe for reform is the
eliminating the federal bureaucracy that federal government’s criminal justice
today stands between underprivileged and prison system. The simple fact is
families and their doctors. that in America today, we put too many
people in prison for too long, with too
We could do the same thing with the little benefit to our society.
Head Start program, which spends $8.1
billion every year through a federal If inmates are violent and threats to
bureaucracy without yielding any our communities, then we have a moral
lasting educational benefits. responsibility to keep them locked
up. If they are not violent and pose no
The data doesn’t tell us that pre-K threat, however, if they have reformed
education and health insurance for poor and are ready to return to their families
families are bad – just that the federal and communities, we have just as much
government does a lousy job of providing moral duty to get them re-integrated
them. So instead, let’s allow states to into our nation’s networks of social and
implement real reforms that give low- economic mobility.
Double Arch, I’m working on bipartisan legislation struggling unskilled workers, struggling This fact did not create America’s marriage their married mom and dad is not a political Brigham Young then called the people to
Arches National Park, UT to reform federal sentencing and young people, struggling immigrants, and crisis – but it hasn’t helped, either. opinion – it is a demonstrable fact. action, with this simple message: “Many of
incarceration policies, following the struggling blue collar workers all want our brethren and sisters are on the plains
transformative example of innovative different things. And now, seemingly every week, scholars Saying so does not demean or degrade other with handcarts … and they must be brought
states. If we are serious about access to are producing more evidence about the family structures. And fear of facts does not here, we must send assistance to them.”
opportunity for all, then we have to put But don’t they all really want the same social and economic consequences of this make us sensitive – it leaves us ignorant.
“rehabilitation” back into the vocabulary thing? To not be struggling? essentially moral question. We now have He said he would not wait until tomorrow
of the federal prison system. scientific consensus supporting what were Public policy need not incentivize people to or the next day. He called for forty
Special-interest policymaking that pits once thought to be merely traditions and get married – for most people, life already young men, sixty-five teams of mules or
There is so much more to do – on issues Americans against each other, is the intuitions. According to one study, the does. What public policy – and even more horses, and wagons loaded with twenty-
ranging from housing to adoption to labor problem, not the solution. The things that taxpayer costs of family fragmentation are importantly, the people who make and four thousand pounds of flour to leave
to mental health. truly fight poverty – economic growth, more than $100 billion per year – a staggering influence public policy – must do is to finally immediately to rescue those pioneers in
education, innovation, voluntary exchange sum that nonetheless pales in comparison accept and embrace and celebrate that fact. the wilderness.
And of course, the best thing we can do – create opportunities for everyone. to the social and human costs, borne
to help the unemployed find jobs, and disproportionately by innocent children. And then see what we can do – together – “I will tell you all,” Young said, “that
low-income workers find higher-income I have no idea if empowering poor to help. Sincerely doing so could do more your faith… and profession of religion,
work is to finally get our economy families – regardless of what they look Yet, this data has arrived at a moment to win the war on poverty than anything will never save one soul of you… unless
growing again. Reforms to our tax, like – to overcome poverty through the when the controversies about same-sex else discussed at this conference today. you carry out just such principles as I
regulatory, energy, and transportation cooperative communities of the market marriage tend to overwhelm any political am now teaching.... Go and bring in
systems that spur private investment economy and civil society will help the discussion of the institution. I want to close with a story from the those people now on the plains.”
and job creation can do more for Republican Party. But I do know it will history of my church and my state.
upward mobility than anything else in help the American people – which is It could be said that the political sensitivity The rescue party quickly assembled and
what the Republican Party is supposed of marriage today might be a good reason In October 1856, two groups of handcart headed East.
government’s power.
to be for. not to bring it up at all. But I think the data pioneers on their way to Utah were
And certainly more than any of the makes this the perfect time to begin this stuck on the plains of Wyoming: short Days later, they reached the pioneers –
divisive, special-interest pandering that And finally, we simply must begin to debate precisely because it will require of provisions, with winter coming, the with food and blankets and hope. The
31 the Washington establishments of both address what we might call America’s such sensitivity on all sides. ground so hard they could not dig graves survivors were then carried, some literally 32
parties cynically substitute for serious “other marriage debate.” for those who expired in the cold. on the backs of their rescuers, to Salt Lake
debate and reform. In an earlier era, our assumptions and – home at last, where they belonged.
In what is now Salt Lake City, Brigham
BRING THEM IN
BRING THEM IN
It is uncomfortable to talk about, and vocabulary might have expressed
Though many Republicans in Congress almost impossible to legislate. But the judgment instead of compassion, and Young stood to open a general Today, millions more of our neighbors are
are building a serious anti-poverty agenda fact is, the problem of poverty in America closed doors instead of opening them. conference of the church, where the still out on the plains. They are not some
the right way – you’ll hear from my friends is directly linked to family breakdown citizens anxiously waited to hear government’s brothers and sisters – they
Paul Ryan and Jim Jordan and others and the erosion of marriage among low- Though the foundational importance the inspiring speeches and powerful are ours.
today – others are tempted by what they income families and communities. of family has not changed – times and sermons common to such gatherings.
see as an easier way. attitudes have. Today, no serious secularist And the time has come to do something
Implicit marriage penalties in our tax thinks the institution of marriage is Instead, he began by reading the report about it. As conservatives, as Americans, and
Too many in our party today seem to code and welfare programs surely need intrinsically oppressive. And no serious sent to Salt Lake by the leaders of the as human beings, we have it in our power –
have convinced themselves that electoral legislative remedies. But what we’re really traditionalist thinks of the children of handcart groups. It told of: individually, together, and where necessary
success depends on adopting the Left’s talking about is a question of culture, not single mothers as “illegitimate.” through government… to bring them into
policy incentives. “between five and six hundred men, our free enterprise economy to earn a good
strategy of dividing the American people.
Even if we remove morality and religion from women, and children, worn by drawing living; to bring them into our voluntary civil
Slice them up into superficial identity For years, politicians on both sides of the question entirely, a stable, intact family handcarts through the snow and mud; society to build a good life; and to welcome
groups, and assume that struggling the aisle have employed terms like remains the greatest incubator of economic fainting by the wayside; falling, chilled them and their children home to an America
African-Americans, struggling Latinos, “family values” and “marriage” primarily opportunity and multiplier of human and by the cold; children crying, their limbs that leaves no one behind.
struggling Asian-Americans, struggling as partisan wedges, cudgels to attack social capital in this world. To say that stiffened by cold; their feet bleeding and
whites, struggling single parents, ideological opponents. children tend to do best when raised by some of them bare to snow and frost.” Thank you, and God bless.
Owachomo Bridge,
Lake Powell, UT
Opportunity, Cronyism,
and Conservative Reform
Compounding the shortage of opportunities privilege of any kind. An anti-cronyist
among the poor and middle class is the third agenda would begin with comprehensive
part of America’s Opportunity Deficit: our tax reform to get rid of unfair carve-outs and
crisis of crony capitalism, corporate welfare, level the playing field for small and large
and political privilege, in which government businesses, as well as regulatory reform to
twists public policy to unfairly benefit reorient the system around transparency
favored special interests at the expense of and accountability. It would eliminate special
everyone else. Whereas the free enterprise policy privileges wherever they exist, whether
system is based on the fundamental equality it’s the health-insurer bailouts in Obamacare,
33 of opportunity for all to succeed and to fail special tax treatment for politically favored 34
on a level playing field, cronyism cements energy producers, the cronyist Export-Import
the status of the politically well-connected, Bank, or the federally created accreditation
OPPORTUNITY, CRONYISM & CONSERVATIVE REFORM
IS WORSE THAN
April 30, 2014
INEFFICIENT –
Thank you very much. political party ready to solve problem 3. Third is America’s crisis of crony
number one. I am here today because capitalism, corporate welfare, and
It is always a privilege to be back at the I believe conservatives are in a unique political privilege: in which government
Heritage Foundation, the heart of America’s
35 conservative movement. And it is to that
position to begin to solve both. twists public policy to unfairly benefit 36
favored special interests at the expense
broad, diverse movement that I have come America’s Opportunity Deficit presents
IT’S UNFAIR.”
of everyone else.
to speak today about an issue with the itself in three principal ways:
OPPORTUNITY, CRONYISM & CONSERVATIVE REFORM
Ogden Office
James V. Hansen Federal Building
324 25th Street, Suite 1410
Ogden, UT 84401
(801) 392-9633
Washington, DC Office
Russell Senate Building
Room 361A
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5444
@senatormikelee
@SenMikeLee
For more information, visit
lee.senate.gov
Monument Valley, UT