no, no, no. so roosevelt of course used them both. and kennedy and so on. so one of the things our reader has to do is drop our belief about democrats one time and republicans another. their idea progressivism is about as liberal as you're going to get it. there was a brave thing that makes today's tea party look like a bunch of gentle hippies. it was a different time. so that's what fascinated me, was kind of getting batted in. >> is there anything today commemorating the house this?

do we still know are some of these places are? >> we know where some of them are or were. the house of truth still exists on 19th street and is being rehabbed by its current owners. it's going to be kind of a museum. >> thank you very much for your time. >> nonbook cv, david davenport, research fellow argues that the debate over the new deal in the 1930s lay the groundwork for today's conservative movement. this program is 45 minutes.

>> -- conservative them. so it's a pleasure pleasure to introduce david davenport. [applause] >> thank you, christy. it's great to be with you today. this is somewhat territory today. i worked in senator bob dole's office, which i suppose dates me. this is a newer building for my time, but the hollowed halls, something about the work you do. thank you for taking a break to be here today. you are brave to come listen to me. in an earlier career as an attorney, group not always known for its brevity of speech and now for a long time i've been an academic, which is a group not known for their clarity of speech. as i said, you're free to combine friday to hear what i have to say. i thought i would begin with the 2012 election. as i'm sure you are aware, after that election, many people proclaimed the death of modern

american conservatism. one commentator said the titanic is sinking, referring to american conservatism. another one observed the conservative arguments we heard in this election are going to be relics in a museum very shortly. lots of people said that conservatism really needed to change but this message if there was ever going to win an election again. it is still being debated today. in "the wall street journal," governor scott walker has a piece talking about what to reduce me to do to be relative. his thought is they don't need to give up their principles. they need to be stronger in the principles and that people are looking for that kind of leadership. so, in this book, we talk about that in the final chapter of this book. gordon lloyd from the pepperdine school of public policy and talk about the conservatism in the last chapter. we really begin elsewhere.

the great writer, pearl buck, said if you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. so when this book, our thought is to go back, historically, to come back to today. in other words, it is not really a history book in the sense we go back to live in an earlier era. we go back to understand and present conservative than to come back to public policy and politics today. the question is, where do we go back to find the risk of modern american conservatism? conventional wisdom is the 1950s. russell curt, a great conservative political philosopher. william f. buckley in the 1950s. national review magazine was launched during the 50s. the conventional wisdom is that as we find the beginning of modern american conservatism. and many slaves busier wrote a very interesting book on calvin

coolidge and propose we had to go further to the 1920s because calvin coolidge was the beginning of modern american conservatism. i saw her week or so ago and i think you've really launched a coolidge is school movement. that probably wasn't easy to do. you see the cover of the book, the top half. he's not really a 21st century kind of guy. the place to go is actually to the 1930s because in their view, modern american conservatism is the response to the new deal to franklin roosevelt. she was, the conservative response in the 1930s was the beginning of modern american conservatism. that response initially came from former president, herbert hoover. lots of people debate how conservative hoover wes as a president and secretary of commerce in the 1920s. i'm happy to talk about that in q&a feedback.

in the 1930s he was shocked by the excesses of the new deal. the 1930s, the new deal was the height of progressivism. we argue in this book that just as edmund burke, the english political philosopher began modern conservatism as a response to the french revolution, we think there is a distinctive red of modern american conservatism. in effect, the new deal with our french revolution. the new deal changed politics, changed governance and so responding to iran's french revolution, herbert hoover's tars to stake out the case for modern american conservatism. in our view, we are still operating under the new deal paradigm today. we argue that politics, american domestic policy today are essentially continuations at new deal. so the debate that started 80

years ago between progressives and conservatives, between roosevelt and hoover in the 1930s, really with the frame at the 2012 debate as i'm going to illustrate in a moment and we think is still the frame for us today. if you listen to the debates in the 2012 election, you really heard echoes of other things i'm going to talk about today. some in our book, we look at three areas where herbert hoover and frank roosevelt debated in the 30s and where we think that is still a key debate today. the first of those is liberty versus equality. this is one of the fundamental debates between progressives and conservatives. if you've read some of your american history, you'll her the french journalist de tocqueville came to america in the 19th century. he observed one of the main differences between the french revolution and republic and the american revolution and republic

as the french were all about equality. they talked about liberty, but they were really all about equality. he said by contrast of the americans and the american revolution is about liberty. they also talk about equality, but what they are after in america is liberty. this is one of herbert hoover's biggest complaints about the new deal, that it was turning america into a form that european totalitarianism. hoover had spent the early part of his career as a mining engineer doing huge many projects abroad, including europe. he has continued to live in europe when he did relief efforts. big food relief efforts during world war i and the postwar era. if you travel belgium especially, herbert hoover is a hero for saving the belgian people from starvation as well as in other countries. one of the things hoover noticed was that it was giving way to

various forms of totalitarianism socialism, communism, is a, fascism. and then he came back to this country and was shocked because in the 1930s, he thought he was voluntarily turning this over to volunteer totalitarianism. in fact, if you look at two cartoon icons, herbert hoover like to talk about the record individual. and franklin roosevelt said no, it is about the forgotten man. these are believed to create cartoon icons of the 1930s. hoover argued, america is about equality of opportunity and individuals having the freedom to decide how they want to live their lives in pursuit that. so america is about equality of opportunity. franklin roosevelt said, and this is a shocking to me. he says straight out, ecology of

opportunity instead. you can't get it anymore. so what we have to be about in this country is equality of outcomes. we have to design public policy around the forgotten and are sometimes around every man. not about individual freedom. this is precisely the debate today. when people talk about in the inequality and how we need to raise taxes on the wealthiest and we need to raise the minimum wage, what they are really arguing for is this equality of outcomes society. this is the way, the form in which that debate is continuing today. so, we go into this in her book. i don't have enough time to go in depth today. if you look at the data, the data is not as clearly supportive that there are massive income inequality problems as it is sometimes

claimed. i'm sure you are rushed out to see robert raises new document about income inequality. it's hot in california. they be not quite as hot in washington d.c. we also argue income inequality, the right question to be asking? isn't the right question income mobility? are people able to move up and down the income scale, not whether incomes are actually equal. when you look at studies of income mobility can you find we have decreed dio of mobility of income in this country. unfortunately, these studies lacked timewise. to study seven of mobility from 1996 to 2005-point out that we have a great deal of income mobility. it divides income into the five quintile. from that study, what you find

is half of the taxpayers during the 10 year period move from one quintile to another. you find that half of the people in the bottom quintile of income during a 10 year period move up, which i think you would normally believe if you were just listening to the inequality debates today. and then, even a fourth of the people in that top quintile dropped down. i mean, there's even mobility going down. it's not like the upper 1% as they always called them. even they experienced mobility. it's sort of works up and down the scale. to us, that is really the question we should be asking about income. our people in a society able to find their place and move up and down. the evidence suggested that is the case. and of course, the fundamental question, is it the governments business to be regulating people's individual and come?

as herbert hoover pointed out, the big problem when government tries to do the equality of outcomes is that people become economically dependent on the government. we sort of lose the american spirit of lush greenery of them, liberty, choosing what you want to do and going after it. we quote favorably this book that came out last year, a nation of takers in which he points out that mitt romney sort of an actual political statement about 47% of the people dependent on government is pretty accurate. 49% are receiving government payments of some form. i think we should have a concern. what is it to the spirit and the will of the people when they are heavily dependent on the government? i think again, this is precisely the debate we are having today. and so, we feel like one of the problems conservatism has is

that it is not really getting out the liberty message the way it was articulated in the 1930s. i think progressives would like to turn the liberty bell into the equality bill. sorry my part isn't better. i couldn't find a good equality bell on google images. one of our problems today is liberty has become a bit of an obstruction. when you ask people what about liberty? what about liberty? we don't know we have any loss of liberty. going to talk more about how we could maybe address that. so, this whole idea of liberty and equality is one of the debates both then and now. the second topic is limited government versus big government. as a wonderful quotation reminding us this has always been part of the american republic from the declaration of independence about king george the third. jefferson raciest erected a multitude of new offices.

swarms of officers to harass our people and yet their substance. that could well be set as today is a big government. there's probably two ways to look at big government versus limited government. there are qualitative issues. on the quantitative side, lots of ways to add up how big government has become or how far away we are getting from limited government. one would be to simply add up the number of several employees, especially nonmilitary civilian employees, which of course is at an all-time high. you could add up to pages in the federal register. again, at an all-time high. in the last two years, growing at an exponential rate. the most traditional way to do the quantitative analysis is

this charge i have here, which is federal government spending as a percentage of gdp. in the early days of the republic, from the founding to the new deal, it is generally 2% or 3%. although there would spikes during wartime. as you can see now, we've risen to the 25% level. when my generation, the baby boomer generation gets on the entitlement trained in terms of social security in medicare and medicaid and now health care, that number is going to go up much, much further. in fact, to arrange that his son tenable for government. we are talking about greece levels of debt and government spent name. so, from the quantitative and will, this is really a concern. hoover on the other hand was more concerned about the qualitative aspects of big

government. government wasn't all that huge. his concern was how much of our lives is government running? how much does it really impacted controlled by government? so one way i look at that today is how is the federal government doing in terms of taking over our lives? one example in the book is the classic local state issue has always been k-12 education. everyone agreed, what is local or state? and yet today, if you ask teachers and educators the primary influence on k-12 education, especially k-12 reform, education reform, they will say the federal government. starting with no child left behind in the last decade, continuing the race to the top grants. today with the federal government has essentially done this bribe states.

they can bribe them with cash to follow approaches. we have in the last decade featherless k-12 education. health and welfare was always part of this date purview. once again, with obamacare, i can't call it that now. but if it? the aca now. then, obviously health care is now essentially been federalized. so this would've been hoover's concern. how much of government control. we need more central planning. we need a regulation. hoover call it economic regimentation. if you look at areas of our lives and state and local policy taken over by the fed, that is a serious problem. the last issue is constitutionally sound. in this part of the book, we

found two great researchers. when given by franklin roosevelt on constitution day 1987. they each give a big constitution speech. as a classic, contrast. roosevelt begins his speech by pointing out that the constitution opens with the expression, we the people. so this reminds us that the constitution is the people's document. it's not a lawyer's document. it is a people's document. it was done by the people and for the people. what that means according to roosevelt on the constitution gives antiquated and out of date. he was giving us on the 150th anniversary. we the people can fix that. we can change that in any way we want. we can accommodate them. we need more regulation, and

people ask if it's unconstitutional, we shouldn't have to worry about that. he tried to pack the supreme court to get more judges on there to quit flowing down his 30 centralization and regulation agenda. unsuccessfully. he finally got enough to go along to begin the cycle of increased regulation and regimentation. if you look back on the new deal, there were no constitutional amendments that were part of this new job revolution. the constitution says this is how you're supposed to change it. you're supposed to to change it by passing in adopting amendments. the only amendment in that timeframe is to say the president can only have two turns after roosevelt had multiple terms. it was all done by reinterpretation or workarounds. i'll talk in a moment how we see that today.

hoover speech was quite different. who restarts at the first 10 amendments to the contribution. one of the main purpose is that the constitution is to protect the people from their government. exactly the opposite of the roosevelt view. the rest is about federalism. he said we had this great system of federalism. checks and balances. balances of power. making sure nobody can get behind the wheel and start running over people or one particular direction. all of this apparatus and here is to make sure that as the founders called it, the cool deliberate sense of the community is carried out. and of course, you just look at the debate today. this is the debate we are having today. roosevelt, we the people approach the living constitution. there's all kinds of claims out there that the constitution is antiquated. it prevents us from tackling

serious problems of the day. they are ignoring the checks and nonsense because that is really slowing government down. there are workarounds. i don't know if you followed the national popular vote, were people who don't like the look world college say we know we could never get an amendment to eliminate, so we will do a workaround and say that if enough states pass a law, requiring electors to vote for the winner of the national popular vote, we've effectively eliminated the electoral college. that is getting a fair amount of traction and signature. again, rather than ending up, which is what requires, we do these workaround and make it a living constitution. our final chapter then it's about the future of conservatism. at the beginning of the chapter,

we have two authors in this book and we are good friends. we've written lots of offense together over the years. when we sat down after the 2012 election, when we were finishing this book, we had a disagreement about the effect of the 2012 election. one of us thought this was a no country for old men moment. i don't know if you seen that movie, read that book. tommy lee jones as the rule texas sheriff. as he comes up against the drug money, the amazing weaponry if you will and the trade and traffic in his area. he's got a six shooter. he says this is too much. i can't handle this anymore. he was overwhelmed and thought this was no country for old men. that's how one of us felt in 2012 that effectively a new majority had come together.

immaturity that was progressive in conservative, majority that had younger voters, a lot of people receiving government assistance that were constituting a new majority that essentially wanted government to pick up the tab four what they wanted government to do. if that impact is a a new maturity, in his view that as a no country for old men moment. he wasn't sure how we'd stop the move of progressivism. the other was more optimistic. if we stayed with the hollywood movie theme, here's mr. smith smith goes to washington. harold wilson, former prime minister said a week in politics is a longtime. two weeks ago the republicans -- republicans are dead for shutting down the government. now republicans are dead for the both of obamacare. a week in politics is a long time. people get carried away, but i'm

election doesn't decide the future of conservatism are progressivism. if you give them a chance, they will come back to their senses. but we decided was to close the book with what we thought were some heart questions conservatives need to answer. i have just listed to it than here that we think are. one is this liberty still resonate? if you go back to the history of conservatism and you have to pick one team that is the essence of conservatism, i do see how you could avoid picking liberty. individual's liberty was the essence of modern conservatives and. when herbert hoover started speaking out against the new deal, his book, speeches were called challenges to liberty. so conservatives historically are defending economic religious and political liberty. that's the heart of

conservatism. the question is, does liberty still resonate with people today? has liberty become an abstraction to people that really is that kind of part of their daily lives? i live in california, obviously. when my wife and i were discussing the redesign in our home, i said i needed new shower head at this one is caught. well, we can't get that kind of showerhead because that is illegal here in california. i said well, i want these kind of knobs. we can't have those either. those are not permitted where we live. is that if i can't have a shower, maybe i'm overregulated. it was one of those moments where the party wasn't an for me. i've got a problem. if you live in new york city, there is a time when it looked like you could buy a 15-ounce soft drink. you could accumulate up to 32 or

64. a lot of people looked at the silliness of that and said liberty is not an abstraction if you can't go in and buy that kind of coke that you want to have. one of my children got finally his first full-time job with benefits. you do the math and you see you are paying taxes until march or april. in some states to pay until may. you think, well, i am understanding a little more the power of the state. it is not such an abstraction. and if i may say, the american people are having one of these non-abstract liberty thoughts right now, whether personal health insurance policies are being declared illegal by the federal government. if we go back to those two icons of the 1930s, the rugged individual, forgotten man, we think american policy works best when policymakers think of both of those and they make policy.

the individual who wants to work and get what he or she needs. and then the safety net to protect the forgotten man. when we've gone off when deep end or another is when we got problems. if you take health care, the last time the government worked on health care, medicare, medicaid, what was the solution? the solution was for the individual health plan. you were at your employer generally and your employer give you a certain health plan and you negotiated with your employer perhaps to get the kind of plan that you wanted. and then for the forgotten man, edition of any care, medicaid, building of the safety net. the extension of roosevelt new deal safety net is how the forgotten man was governed. in obamacare, there is a huge tip now to the scale of the american people are only now seeing. in order to cover the uncovered,

and i am not an economist, but hoover, ms. have pointed out probably only 15% of the american people could not get health insurance who wanted to get it. in order to meet their needs, we have to federalize the losses to. now people wake up that is illegal to have the policy. it's also does liberty moment. i can't have a policy that i work for and we all agreed i would have. it is now illegal to have that policy. they restated that yesterday in california. instead, you need it more expensive policy that has things that at least in the case of my children in their 20s don't really want or don't really need. again, that is one of the moments would liberty becomes less abstract and more real. i think that is a question conservatives have to wrestle with. how to make liberty realty people? that's the heart of

conservatism. the same question they raise is the time for conservatives to give up and values. a lot of people today say this is the time we need to get rid of these crazy social conservatives, christian conservatives in the difficult social question that they keep raising. certainly in california, where i'm from, we have lots of people who would be fiscal conservatives, economic conservatives, but on social issues would be moderate, liberal, libertarian, are interested in a lot of attention to these issues. one thing we concluded is we have to remember conservatism has always had some kind of value-based component. edmund burke, again, the father of modern conservatism sad that said that we needed amiably regulated liberty. in order for liberty stuart, --

the founders said if we were quite happy or a society that works, you have to have a virtuous people. otherwise freedom does the work. so our concern is that conservatives do not throw out the baby of values with the bathwater. but instead, conservatives have to work on housing, in our view, less specific, less concrete values and be working on a broader set of values that takes the free republic work. ronald reagan is being quoted more these days, that just because you disagree with about 20% of the time doesn't mean you can work with them on the other 80%. if we disagree on 2%, we can't be friends anymore. we can't work together. that's a losing proposition . rather than throwing out value,

it seems conservatives need to move towards a broader sets of values. conservators hot to relearn. they preach this federalism message. when one of their issues is at stake, they are just as happy to go to the supreme court. we complain about judicial activism, but we are filing lawsuits, going to the supreme court. if we believe in federalism, we probably have to practice that ourselves and not make every issue of concern is a federal issue. so that is the argument that we make. the old story, in closing about the husband and wife who are having a conversation at the husband said i just have to ask you, if i lost everything, if i lost the house, the car, the boat, which you still love me? the way said yes, i would still love you. i would miss you, but i still love you.

why is how that is after 80 years, progressives and conservatives are still trying to appear together. progressives are still trying to expand the new deal. conservatives are still wrestling against it. it's really amazing if you think about the relevance of conservatism. it is amazing that obamacare was signed in to law over three years ago and is still being debated and worked out today. conservatism isn't dead. if you look at this obamacare debate over a law that has been in effect over three years. the american people are center-right in their hips. i think the argument we make in this boat is if conservatives could just give americans some philosophy and ideas for their

heads in their hearts, it was kind of matchup with their innate conservatism in their hips. then conservatives might have a hopeful future. so that is our book. that is our central case. i'm happy to open the floor for questions, comments. you don't have to form an essay question. just don't go on superlong. let's open the floor and see what you might want to say. yes, sir. >> you spoke of checks and balances. this administration has been good at the workarounds are talking about. mandatory spending is obviously automatic. the nuclear option yesterday is analogous. how can congress claw back some of the authority of the powers

we delegate? >> unfortunately, this is not a republican or democrat problem. whoever is in power doesn't want to give it the executive power. the bush administration we have training statements and executive orders in each administration seems to ratchet that up. it's not just a problem with a particular president or administration. i would give a couple hopeful signs. one is probably the only institution that you hear willing to roll the clock back a bit if you is the u.s. supreme court. we have two or three justices on the u.s. supreme court who openly say now we are not so much slaves to every court decision that's been decided ahead of us to say, no i'm sorry, we were wrong when they made that decision. go back to a time before the most recent supreme court

decision. that gives me hope that a summit this is challenged in a legal sense, we now have justices on the supreme court that might be willing to claw back or roll back the clock to some decision could have been made. the second hopeful sign and this is painful to wait for it is there is kind of a pen joy -- a potential or view of history. it goes so far finally you think enough. al jazeera? story. i am from california. the california republican party has apparently had absolute rock bottom. there's a two thirds majority in the legislature. we have been ahead of the republican party a few months ago that we were giving them how they could do a better job. they said that's interesting. i have one goal. i forgot how many seats they have to win to undo the two thirds majority. the only goal i have is to win

the three seat that would give them another round of just fabulous strategies and ideas and communications. that's great. i only have one goal. i want to win the three seats. the republican party has gotten so bad that they finally take him and say here is the one thing we have to rollback. i would guess in the potential or view, it will hit a stage for even you had some democrats joining some republicans on the recent obamacare about. not very many, but at least three democrats joined republicans on this nuclear option vote. but until the pendulum gets too far is really painful. those were a couple of hopeful forces. other questions, comments? >> i guess i don't know if it's accurate or not, but it seems

that people who disagree with conservatives, whether it is moderate left were born liberals, maybe it is the same vice versa. it is a difference between the conservatism and extremism on the right? i am wondering if you agree with that perception and also, it may be that is why people are saying conservatism is almost dead because it's the allied extremism. lastly, how can conservatives, you know, kind of separate themselves and have conservative principles and not use without being an extremist? >> ray. that's good. frankly, politicians, and that is the environment in which you

work or not the best at communicating philosophical conservatism. it comes down to a win lose on particular issues. conservative politicians have to win at the end of the day. so i think it is a challenge kind of who they are listening to. that is why we wanted to write a book like this because it seems to us that the core message of conservatism is not as extreme as many political leaders have made it sound. we think some of the political leaders have a mistake in racing the win at all costs strategy, where conservative means are important along with conservatism. if you study the william f. buckley, conservative means are not as extreme as some of the things conservatives have been doing in recent years to win at all costs. so when our view, we think

political leaders need to think about conservative means as well as an. yes, they may not win every round doing that, but it seems alone make their message more consistent in the long haul. secondly, it seems like the basic message of liberty that conservatives have to find a way to make that resonate with people. personal liberty is not an extreme message. at the end of the day, we knowledge that the message of progressivism is sometimes fred meyer, if you go, then the conservative message. there's a famous quote from william f. buckley. that is not as appealing. he was called senator gridlock. he didn't find that. there's a lot of bad ideas in washington and somebody needs to stop them. so that was his idea of

conservatism. some college giving him an honorary doctorate degree. he said he said it was they have to call me dr. gridlock now. this is one of the problems of conservatism, when your problem, progressives are quick to design a solution. we feel your pain will design something that will fix your pain in the worst conservatives are in a more defensive posture from the same we don't want to the federal government. the next part of the conservative message doesn't get hurt. we believe in individual freedom. we believe in churches and all of these associational approaches, kind of those things. we believe in building a safety net, but not a complete takeover of health care, for example. so we agreed the conservative message is a harder one to get across. but we think that it can be improved and liberty can be made

to resonate with more people. i don't want to guide off by a children who were in their 20s, but they're not interested in politics. they are fairly typical of the generation that needs to be reached. all of those politicians are trying to tell us how to live here to think that of conservatism. conservatives are trying to tell them what to do in social issues. liberals try to talk them. he's frustrated with all of them. maybe that is a part of our message. instead of telling people have to live, the message is liberty. even for 20 euros that could be a favorable message. any others? yes, sir. >> i think a lot of us answered or give ourselves the questions when we saw a few weeks ago the governor race between christie and kuchen ali. the media especially highlight

the polarity within the republican party. i would like to ask, in regards to modern conservatism between the center-right and the conservatives themselves, who would be right in this instance? how can we create more of a unity within the party rather than a separation? >> obviously, it is tricky because at the end of the day, what conservatives have to do to be most relevant is when a presidential election. to do that come you have to find somebody who embodies the message and can win. so you know, it's a lovely thing to write a book of political philosophy. basically you have to find a candidate who can embody that and when. a lot of people thought, for example, in the last election that mitt romney wasn't a philosophical to reduce. he was more of a pragmatic

businessman and maybe wasn't that the core, body throughout these policies. as you say, we had the debate between christie and kuchen ali example. one thing conservatives have to do is quit killing each other and give each other a little room to breathe. right after the election, chris christie has beaten his opponent by a landslide. he says after that, ima conservatives. in my view, he has had the sort of conservative impulses to meet with conservative policies. he's obviously in a blue state. in my home state of kansas number four expand role. so when my view, you cut him a little bit of slack for that kind of place he has to govern. ..

i know that going back to ancient conservative history might not be the most interesting thing to do especially when washington is the here and the now. i would like what former senator alan simpson used to say. he said washington is the only place where sound travels faster than light and so i know that it is aas