agriculture than there are in the numbers of people in this country. and that's not only true in the u.s., that's true in western europe and u.s., india. and i was just in japan. it is true in spades in japan. where the interest of food producers is disproportionately more powerful than their numbers are. and especially when you consider the numbers folks in rural set gs ings. in the u.s., this disproportionate power. notice i'm not saying excessive power, i'm saying disproportionate power as compared to the population is baked into our constitution by the fact that each state has two senators. so, whether it's wyoming, with 700,000 people or california with over 50 million people, they're each represented by the exact same number of people in our government. and the senate is the great protector of agriculture, has been since the beginning of t e time, and still remains that

way. whereas the house of representatives may have about 40 or 50 members that are predominantly food production represents food production districts. every united states senator represents at least some food production. that includes from the smallest states of rhode island and delaware to, of course, the largest states. and historically, those interests were dominated from people by the midwest and the heartland states. so illinois, indiana, missouri, my own state of kansas. and the midwest, up through the dakotas. and states in the south where you had members of congress and especially members of the united states who were elected forever. they accumulated great amounts of power, and they were able to influence the political process rather significantly so the states of mississippi, which was one state that had accumulated a large amount of power over the

years. but all of the southern states, georgia, south carolina, north carolina, called the southern crops had very, very powerful defenders in the congress. and that's why programs like tobacco, cotton and rice, you know, were -- got special treatment. but even in big states that have big urban populations states like california, or the pacific northwest. or even in the northeast where you have smaller producers. those producers and interests have very strong defenders in among their senators. so, for example, in the state of vermo vermont, patrick leahy, and no one's more tenacious defending in vermont which had a population of 600,000 or 700,000 people and did a good job in protecting the dairy industry in those years. those interests particularly in the senate and we still have it,

our constitution's not changed. it was the senate where the act was. those interests have a lot to do with not only u.s. farm policy, trade policy, and -- and, you know, in addition to the variety of programs we have to deal with. so that's certainly a given right now. the senate is a big factor in why u.s. farm policy has remained largely unchanged since the great depression. there have been changes, of course, but the population of this country has gone from a population about 40% rural before the second world war to less than 10% rural today. yet, the programs are very widely supported in the congress. now, in the -- about 40 years ago, a political calculus was made in this area that this

wouldn't last forever. and that a new equation was needed to add to this problem. to this coalition. to keep this funding arrangement. smart senators like senators dole, mcgovern and others decided, you know, just looking at the demographics at some point there won't be people living in rural america working on farms. a new coalition was developed with people who needed food assistance. that coalition was demonstrated by attention to snap or the old food stamp program, school meals, the wic program, women, infants, children and others. and that created an alliance between urban and rural interests that grew up largely in the 1960s and '70s. and which lasted pretty much until today. that coalition is frayed, there's no question it's frayed. it was -- it was almost blown up

in the last farm bill. but the coalition between food producers and food consumers who used these federal assistance programs basically kept the farm bill politically alive for a very, very long time. and as i mentioned, there's people like dole and mcgovern and leahy, largely in the senate, although there were some in the house that were involved, it was largely a senate thing to bring these people together. and to provide this kind of impenetrable coalition between the house and the senate. the irony in all of this is that rural and farm interests are largely more conservative politically than the country as a whole. and historically, lean republican. and, yet, we're reliable voters for farm legislation, which included large amounts of government payments for both farmers and nutrition programs.

as well as supporting international assistance and exports and anything to benefit the farm economy. so under the theory that political theory is merely the rationalization of economic self-interest, farmers had a lot of economic self-interests that kind of belied their kind of traditional republican less government interventionist beliefs on about everything else. so you'd find farm supporters in congress supporting these programs and often not supporting other federal programs that had the government, you know, growing in this way. so the other point i would make in this is while the president and the executive branch is certainly important in terms of the making of foreign policy and in policy making generally, but in farm and agriculture programs, overall, since the depression, it has been congress which has led the decisions on farm and commodity programs and

in nutritional assistance programs. not the white house, but the congress. and it's one, when i was secretary of agriculture, i was there from '95 to 2001, and the congress passed a farm bill in 1996 called freedom to farm. and i talked to president clinton about this on repeated occasions. but it was clear even when i was secretary that the decisions were made in the legislative branch. we implemented them. we could modify them to some degree. but probably not since the days of henry wallace has the congress had -- been able to assert itself rather -- the president been able to assert itself rather dramatically in these programs. and that's been true of clinton. it was true of bush, it's certainly true of obama. the last farm bill, president obama and his team were not the driving force behind this farm bill. it was the congress. this is sometimes very difficult for people outside the united

states to understand. understanding our political systems, we have something called separation of powers. where we have checks and balances. where the executive branch is not the head of state. it's difficult to understand that we have a system that is built on separation. not working together. our system, political system was built on basically having one foot on the brake and one foot on the accelerator at all time. that's what the founding fath s

fathers -- and can generally decide what to do. so my point in all of this is that congress is the dominant force, the senate is historically been the dominant force, the coalition between rural and urban interests has been forged over the years, largely because of the coalition between nutrition and more traditional farm program levels. and that has been the case until the current time. but the coalitions, especially between rural and urban and conservative and liberal are becoming more frayed in this country. the coalition just about broke up and dissolved. it took over two years, the bill was around two years late. and in large part because ideological politics dominated rather than the kind of

consultive that have been traditional in farm programs over the years. congress did pass a farm bill, it took nearly three years of delay and pulling teeth by a few people, particularly in the senate, and the house chairman and there were people in both houses of congress. but, again, it was largely people in the congress that got this bill passed. so, i mention all this because then i -- you've got to look to the context of politics generally in america right now. it's not secret that most people are looking at our political system even inside our political system and seeing it just doesn't feel right. it's just not working the way it should. that people do nothing but fight and kill and scream and are engaging in kind of tribal politics where very little can get -- very little future legislation can get done. and so when you look at agriculture and food security and all of the enormous

challenges, i'll touch on towards the end of my remarks. kind of got to look at our political system. the reason why is because america has been a driving force behind so many things to deal with the rest of the world and bringing developing world up into more modern ways of coping and dealing with food security issues and humanitarian issues. other countries are on gauge, too, but the united states has been a driving force for these programs, as well as for others, as well, that you wonder what's happening in the big picture right now? what is it that the country doesn't seem to have its act together. if we don't have our act together, it will be very difficult for us to influence issues like research and climate and yields and a whole litany of issues that impact the world at large. i want to talk about that for a second.

and the context of these large issues impacting american politics, bipartisanship, civility and working across party lines which has been a very strong theme throughout the history of american politics. those themes are frayed right now. and we've got to figure out ways to restore those in order for the united states to maintain its leadership and food, food security, agriculture and everything else you can think of. i've been at a place called bipartisan policy center for about 3 1/2 years now. this was started by the last four senate majority leaders. senators dole, daschle, mitchell and baker. two republicans, two democrats. so people will come up to me and say, boy, you've been doing a hell of a job at this bipartisan policy center the last 3 1/2 years. and my response is, well, just think how terrible the world would be if i weren't at the

policy center. but the point is that the kinds of themes and trust that are needed to make our country function better are so much harder to achieve. and if you look in the area of agriculture in food, where you consider 1.5% of the people are actually producing the food and maybe you have up to 10% of the people in the whole sector that it is so critically important that these bridges be built with other parts of our country, and that there be some sort of glue to bring the country together in order to solve the problems. they are becoming harder and harder to solve. and as i said, our system only works if there's trust. trust is the grease that allows people of different philosophical views to work together. and i repeat this because i think it's important. the branches of government

between our -- within our constitutional system are equal. so the congress and the president and the courts are equal. and if you don't get that, then you can't explain why it is that we're having so much trouble right now. because when you have people of equal authority and legitimacy working on problems, one of those people has to work to give a bit nor to get the other thing done. and it reminds me of the relationship between me and my wife. now, i will tell you that relationship is an equal relationship. my dad used to say he always had the last word in our family. my mother would say shut up and he'd say, okay. you know. but, but -- you know, the truth of the matter is that it takes two to tango, and that kind of consensus building is what's important. we did not want the tyranny of a too powerful executive.

so we agreed this political system would exist where we'd be separate and we'd have checks and balances and no one place in our government would have excessive power over another place. but it works only if people can get along. it works only if the public demands that people get along with each other. my own belief is 80%, 85% of the american people want the system to work better. it's just the 15% or so that are the driving forces in our political system. they're the ones that are pushing politicians to the edge. and they're the ones i think in some part responsible for the kind of -- the ads that you see on tv. we -- our system cannot operate as a parliamentary system, like the brits do, the japanese do, or other places. because of separation of powers. and if we try to operate like a parliamentary system so the parties are unanimous and rigid and work together on everything, then it's surely going to break down. we'll see what happens in these elections on tuesday.

watching all the commentary speak on them, i'm hopeful that a lesson from all of this is that the public will speak and message of civility and bipartisanship will be heard as a result of this election. i don't know, we have two more years of a presidency. and, of course, the day after this election starts the elections of 2016. but, again, i'm hopeful that we will be able to resolve this. now, how does this all -- i've talked a little bit about a political system because i spent all this time in the legislative branch of the government, and i think one has to understand it before you then took a look at the issues of food security and food production, food and healthy and everything. so i'd start with the basic principle in this whole area. this is the good news. the good news is that agriculture and food issues for years were pretty much parochial

issues. and they were in the bailiwick of those people who were from those states or those part of the country that produced the food. and now, agriculture and food security issues are much higher up on the international agenda. they are integral topics in these global meetings whether they're the g-8 or the g-20 or the g-7, now, i guess since the russians are out of it. g-7 or g-7 1/2 or g-8. and issues of the environment of water, of population. of feeding a hungry world in a sustainable way. these are much higher worldwide priorities than they used to be. the downside for some agriculture, some folks are now in this game watching these issues. it used to be just, let's say the land grant schools or just, are the people who represented commodity groups. now you tend to find consumers, economists, the nonagriculture

sectors very interested in food security issues. politically, bigger issues because of the impact on international situations and the destabilization of countries that are -- don't have access to adequate food supply. napoleon once said that war is too important to be left to the generals. and my theory is agriculture and food interests are too important just to be left to the people in agriculture. that sometimes is a hard fact for people who have spent their lives in traditional production agriculture to accept. but the fact of the matter is that feeding a hungry world is a very high political priority. and it's one that, fortunately, has -- has come up significantly since i first got on to politics about 40 years ago. so that's good news. and that good news, i think, helps policy makers whether they're in congress or around the world focus on some of these important long-term issues affecting agriculture.

there is now a realization, another piece of good news. bad news. the bad news is that we've been underfunding research in agriculture. the good news is that there's a real saix that we're underfunding research. bob and others and i try to be involved in this have been quite involved and engaged in talking about the fact that dollars spent on agriculture and food research have been falling in real terms for the last 20 years and the challenges are getting bigger and the amount of money going into research is getting smaller. and many cases, the research that is being done is not very prioritized. and my judgment, a lot of the research is replicative of research done earlier and doesn't necessarily meet where the gaps are in the future. the bad news, a little bit, is very little attention was given to research and during the debate on the farm bill, i don't think that the congress held one hearing during the farm bill on research. most of the hearings are going to be on what the crop insurance

program is going to look like or what are the payment levels to farmers going to look like? that's important if you live in that part of the country. but what kind of long-term research is needed to make our agriculture competitive. the debates in the future are that critical. how do we feed this large group of growing numbers of people, particularly in the developing world? that is a huge problem. however, i'm a little bit of a contrarian on this problem. i think we've just accepted the population is going to grow another 3 billion people or so, maybe. maybe we'll get a better handle in population planning. maybe we get a -- you know, a better handle on the developing

world internal policies as they grow and we just don't have to meet those assumptions. and so i know that most people believe this population growth figure is just kind of a given. i'm not sure. i hope that i'm wrong. i hope i'm right about this, no the i'm wrong about this. the second choice is how to feed these people sustainably without ripping up forests. and there's been a fair amount of farmland during the last five years of high farm prices that's been plowed under to take advantage of those higher prices. and that's a real serious problem with respect to our natural resources where forests and fragile jill lands. so the conservation of natural resources is a big thing. and by the way, politically, it is critically important agriculture understands that the support of the future of farm programs is in large part dependent on the public believing that agriculture

interests are, in fact, good stewards of the public lands. increasing crop yields is another issue. the rates of yield increases have been slowing significantly, especially with respect to the crops. what are we going to do about it? how do we deal with it? how do we deal with it sustain bli? and how do we use technology in the way we need to use it to increase yields? dealing with rising food prices and impacts on political stability. that was a big factor in the last decade. food prices and farm prices have -- their growth has slowed. and in many cases, fallen rather dramatically. but those -- it's going to go back up again. the demographics of agriculture are just clear that we're going to have extremely volatile food prices over the next two or three decades. whole issue of climate, whether variability, global warming, co-2 emissions, how that's going to affect agriculture and this is an area where i think some in

agriculture recognize this problem, some in agriculture are fighting this problem that there is, in fact, global warming occurring and that it could be agriculture has got a role in both the cause and the prevention of this issue. i spoke, not long ago at a big crowd of farmers. i won't tell you exactly which group. but i was just amazed at -- this is about a year and a half ago. and there were about 1,000 farmers there. and the intensity of negative feeling about this issue, about e.p.a., the e.p.a. was almost -- i've never seen an american agency so vilified as i saw the e.p.a. and i've never seen the suspicion about science, especially about climate science so vilified. and this is something that we in agriculture have to figure out how to deal with.

you can't have it both ways in science. i'm a big -- the right is very much suspicious, political right is very much suspicious of the science of climate change and weather variability. but by and large, they embraced the science of biotechnology. and the left is suspicious about the science of biotechnology. and embraced the science of climate change and weather variability. and i remember senator moynihan from new york once had this very famous statement. he says, you can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts. and what's happened in the area of science, especially as it affects much of agriculture is people have positioned their facts as kinds of ideology rather than looking at science in a broader perspective. and certainly one of our challenges in the future is how to get people -- someone on the same page when it comes to these issues of science and technology. because ultimately, many of the

problems are going to be solved in that, as well. energy, okay. so agriculture is perhaps the largest per unit user of energy in this country. that's one place where actually there is a remarkably positive thing happening. i mean, this country is likely to become energy independent in the next decade. we're the largest producers or will be of natural gas in the world. and so, in one respect, if you were looking at one of some of the positives of agriculture, it would be the power of energy and energy availability and energy pricing to make agriculture a lot more competitive than it's been in the past. and one final thing, which i think is important to consider is the whole issue of the rural urban interface in this country. and in the world as a whole. as you see, large parts of the world move from rural regions like, especially in china, the urban regions. it has significant impact on

food production, water utilization, and climate. and these are our great challenges of the future. and the question is, are our political systems able to deal with these political challenges? and, you know, i work a lot in the foundation world, and with corporate, corporations who are held and ngos. but, and they're all very important. but none can provide the scale of government, none. so if you want to feed a hungry world, it's -- there's nobody who has been out more in front of this than the gates foundation. i work a lot with them. but they're small. even bill and melinda gates are small in connection with the scope and size of governments to deal with these massive problems. and so i think it's great that the foundation world, the ngo world and the corporate world are all involved. and by the way, they are at the

forefront of a lot of the issues and what we need to be doing to change policy. what gates and rockefeller and ford and other foundations are doing in africa and the developing world are remarkable. but we cannot forget that governments have the amounts of money, the capital, and the influence to help solve these problems. and i'll say this in a bit of a chauvinistic sense, nobody has that like the united states of america. we have been historically ha major factor in feeding hungry people and helping folks develop themselves. and the real question for us is can we can continue to do it given the political system that we currently have? i mentioned our research establishment. some of you may know that the congress created a $200 million fund in the last farm bill called foundation for food and agriculture research. i'm not sure why, but the secretary of agriculture decided to probably get the least

competent person to chair that. so he chose me to chair that fund. and we're going to be looking at new and innovative ways to provide agriculture research initiatives that the private sector can't seem to, or don't want to fund because they don't have a short-term impact on their bottom line. and in many cases, the other parts of our federal research establishment or state research establishment don't want to -- haven't taken the risks involved. so these may be some slightly more interesting and less short-term funding that are going to come out of the government. but our research establishment needs to be given the resources by the government and by the private sector to continue to work on these programs. and we also need to take a look internally and prioritize the kind of research that's being done. because, quite frankly, a lot of the research that's being done

in -- especially in the public sector is not as focused on basic research, it's replicative, in many cases not prioritized. that's my editorial comment there. we need to figure out how to use new information technologies to help farmers around the world cope with pricing and weather. one of my real interests has to do with the weather service and how we get farmers, worldwide, better and more instantaneous access to information about rainfall amounts, droughts, and other weather variability. what we need to be doing is giving farmers tools to determine what pricing they're getting for their commodities and weather-related events. and then the infrastructure roads and that kind of thing in order to get -- make them more accommodating in the future. food waste. 30% of the food is wasted.

it's thrown in the garbage. in the united states, 30%, too, believe it or not. thrown in the garbage. we're an affluent country, we produce more than we use and eat more than we should, by and large. i'm speaking for myself here as well as everybody else. but in the rest of the world, food waste is in large part a function of terrible roads, bad governance, intermittent electricity, and, you know, you sometimes think if we could minimize food waste by 25%, it would have a remarkable impact on our ability to feed the world. that much less soil erosion, that much less land that would be planted on. the issues of indict and health. you know, i'm strike with this whole ebola situation. that the evidence seems to be clear that people who are healthier and better fit are more likely to survive the disease than people who have weak immune system and not doing as well. i don't think we have focused enough on the relationship

between what you eat and how healthy you are. and i know the first lady and the president have gotten some flak from focusing on that. and -- but to be honest with you, if you believe the old french philosopher, you are what you eat, then, then, you know, we shouldn't be afraid, producers of food shouldn't be afraid to look much more specifically at the relationship between indict and health and having good science that gives us focus on that. two, three other just quick issues before i conclude. water, water resources, water availability. water is the life blood of agriculture and, you know, and using new technology. we've got -- we've got to figure out better ways to grow crops and raise animals utilizing less water. i think we have the technical capacity to do that. but in the area of urbanization when most of the water is going to feed, for people to drink who live in urban areas, it's going to be a bigger and bigger challenge all the time. i mentioned roads and

transportation infrastructure. the greatest need of the developing world is a road system where people can move their crops. the united states has a role in doing that kind of thing. and finally, governance where oversees governments, is not good, the rule of law is not appreciated. if contract compliance is well affected, it's really hard to build a system of self-sufficiency that we have so luckily had in our country. i repeat the quote that i said before is -- what north ameriap. we all have a stake in these issues, whether you're urban or rural, whether you work in an automobile plant or whether you work on a farm. and the issues are bigger than traditional ag and food issues. these are the biggest issues of human kind we're going to face in the future. the ability to sustainably

produce enough food. do we have the will? is our political system up to the task? not only american political system, but the global political system. then hopefully it is. i think it will be with a lot of tugging and pushing and pressure. and with the help of folks in this room and others, we really have no alternative to that. so, bob, thank you, thank you all very much for listening to me today. >> thanks very much, dan, for that very enlightening lecture. if you join me at the table over there, we'll take questions from the participants. >> alumnus from '74. you mentioned an important

point, and i keep -- only governments can. so all ngos and maybe foundations can do is show the way. where have you seen excellent transmission from ngos, foundations showing the way and governments picking up the scale up at a rapid pace. >> well, i'll give you one example, and i'll talk more generally. in ethiopia, they have -- they always had a problem of pricing coffee. farmers who grew coffee could never figure out what they were going to get for their product and how -- and part of it was a marketing problem. with the efforts of usaid, and led by some foundations and others, they created a coffee exchange. now there is a mechanism where farmers can using their cell phones and their smart devices

can access more current information on a coffee prices. and as i understand it's had a remarkable effect on their income levels. that's one small example. i do think the administration's efforts in feed the future and then the bush administration's efforts on pepfar which were dramatic, and it's funny, a lot of people don't talk about, you know. in my political circles, george bush tends to get the same kind of negative publicity that barack obama gets from the tea party in the right wing. but the truth of the matter is, the bush efforts on health in africa were truly transformational. and those then had an impact on economic development and allowing people to move up the income chain. so, and i think the same way president obama's been doing and feed the future and usaid have been -- have been really helpful. not only in subsaharan africa,

but america, as well. i think the foundations and ngos are at the cutting edge of what needs to be done. and, you know, i just have to tell you what the gates foundation is doing around the world and experimenting. see, they can experiment and fail. the government, if it fails, congress doesn't like that very well. and they sometimes use the failure as an example. why are we doing this in the first place? so that's why it's so incredibly important that these foundations and related ngos still have the resources to be out there to inspire the government to do their work. but repeat what you said, you can't -- only the government can scale these projects up. >> there was another question right here in the corner, then we'll come over to the middle. >> hi, my name is ben herschman. thank you for coming to speak to us and the objectivity of your remarks. a lot of us are appreciative of

that. it's difficult for a former or current public official to be objective. you touched on energy security. and how there are some positive aspects there. i wanted to ask if you could speak a little more about the intersection of food security and energy security. particularly, with regard to how certain crops are grown both for food and for energy. >> i think my friend bob thompson may be able to comment better than i can. i do know in africa we have this power africa initiative that its goal is to provide enough, you know, electricity so that farmers can be relatively independent in terms of their own living standards as well as small production facilities. for example, in the area of food waste. to really deal with a lot of those issues very well, you have to have electricity that comes right to the farm gate. and so, it's a struggle, but this is an area where the ability of governments to

function in a noncorrupt atmosphere can lead to some real successes in this area. i suppose my big point overall was the fact that the united states for the first time is becoming energy self-sufficient. and i think that is going to change our attitude over the next decade or so politically in terms of how we approach whether it's the middle east or whether it's china. we are -- we operate in a relatively insecure world in terms of insecure in terms of our attitudes as well as the practicality in terms of energy and that is going to reliablely change in the future. the final thing is technology, my prediction is with the rapid movement of technology, we're going to be able to produce devices in this world for small scale use. that will allow them to do things that will use far less energy solar energy.

we got to just encourage that entrepreneurial spirit particularly in the developing world to develop that small scale technology. >> you may have other -- >> the only thing i would add is with respect to food crops that are used as feed stocks from which to produce biofuels like ethanol, i am a technology optimist and believe if we invest enough in productivity, we can feed the world's future population better than today at reasonable cost without destroying the environment. but we're not investing enough in research today to accomplish that. my current estimate is we need to grow production 2/3 between now and the middle of the century. there's at most 10% more land available to grow down without cutting trees and probably have to do with less water because cities would be outbidding farmers for less water. with that, again, as i say, i

think if we can invest enough in research, we can raise productivity fast enough to do both. at the moment, we're not. so i sense that there is some competition between food and fuel at the moment. question here in the middle and then we'll go to the back. >> thank you, mr. secretary. international fertilizer development center. i think you really touched on the driving issues surrounding agriculture, food security. and i look back in terms of the idea of crossing partisan lines and creating a coalition that works together across party lines. there needs to be usually a driving issue that leads the way. i think the pl-480 law in the 50s sort of was that leading edge that started the working together of urban and rural interests. when i look at the eight or nine

issues that you addressed, i don't see any of them as being the leading issue, which gives the opportunity for both sides of the aisle to cross lines in this environment. give me some hope that there is one that we might focus on. >> well, you know, i think hunger, worldwide hunger is an issue. hunger and poverty are extremely important issues. and i do think that there is a bipartisan support for allevi e alleviating world hunger. and, so, from a humanitarian perspective, when there's a drought or famine or something terrible, flood, tsunami, you clearly have bipartisan support. the question is how do you drill deeper to do the development type things that bring people together i sense it's there believes that the corporate world is now business world is

engaged and will become more so. in the years to come. and, you know, but it's difficult in our country with the visions that exist on so many issues. and people not coming together. and the sales job has not been very well. you go out in the world and tell people, how much do we spend on foreign assistance? okay. the average person will say 20%, 15%, 10%, 5%, it's 1%, less than 1%. and by the way, that includes military assistance in many cases, foreign military assistance. just not economic assistance. and, you know, agriculture has always been good at recognizing. we were always very much involved in the sales and humanitarian side. i think that's going to continue for a long time to come. when you see when the big chasm

drop in commodity prices, i think it's going to, you know, it's going to happen again. and quite honestly, this is my theory of government. the president of the united states is the only one that represents everybody. the president has to be a leader on these issues. and i think president obama's done a good job on feed the future and developing aid. and i think his administrative a.i.d. has been transformatio l transformational. in the same way that president bush led this health issues in africa. and he was kind of able to trump some of the conservative forces in this country saying it's in the american interest to do this right. let's look at the ebola crisis for a moment. this is an issue which i suspect we'll get through. i think everybody kind of ignored it. it was happening somewhere else. and the minute the guy in dallas gets this and dies and in new york you see the quarantine

issues and everything else. it's becoming a big issue. and we have top continue a better job of explaining to people, america's part of the world, global issues are critical, and what happens in food security will impact us very directly. it's just a constant battle. >> there's a hand right on the aisle there at the back row. . >> hi, i'm a former negotiator. i worked with bob thompson on agriculture. >> what year was that, by the way? >> in the '80s. >> okay. i didn't think he was quite that old, but i guess he is. >> well, we haven't had a successful global agreement on agriculture since. you have posited the world in which the issue is shortage of food and yet domestic politics and agriculture around the world and in the negotiations is posited on the opposite.

that is overproduction and price declines. we negotiate a set of commitments. then the u.s. congress changed farm program where it may be difficult to abide by commitments in the future low cycle of low prices. my question is, how can the united states, if were to violate its commitments expect the rest of the world to abide by their commitments to import our food. and so, has anybody -- and this is not, you know, issue of farm, nonfarm, domestic politics, it's going to face agriculture community itself of how are they going to protect their export markets if we don't have a system which allows us to abide by our commitments? >> so it's like do as i say, not as i do, so to speak. i think it's very important point you raise. and one nice thing, i think, is this last farm bill moves us

into a direction which is less dependent on what i call surplus based agriculture programs. and it's more based on risk management systems. and, i think, if we get used to that, that's going to be helpful in making sure farmers know trade is something that's critical to their lives. and that you got to -- what's good for the goose is good for the gander. when i was secretary, i made a decision to let in mexican avocados in the united states. and then one day, i -- i, you know, i've discovered the impact of farm politics more directly. because one day my wife wakes up and nervous and she says did you see this? and i said, what is it? and she says, there's a picture of a mexican avocado grower. no, a california avocado grower,

and i'm pointing a gun at the guy's head. and -- because i allowed more mexican avocados into this country. and so trade is -- i began to realize trade is an extremely complicated political issue when it comes to agriculture. and, you know, we've seen this battle now brazilian cotton issue. there was a whole litany of it. but, you know, i work for a president who really loved trade. this was high priority to him. and it made a difference in terms of -- and there are other presidents who maybe done it. i am talking my own experience. i remember when i was in congress, i wasn't yet in the cabinet when nafta came up. and he called me personally. he said, this is important to the united states of america. it's one of the most important things we've ever done. i'm not sure -- he was hyping it a bit to be honest with you. but he cared about it very much. and so i think one of the

problems with trade is that if it becomes too technical, if it's explained in too much lawyerly talk, then the commodity groups can get ahold of it and the public is just kind of has a mixed reaction to these things anyway. and so, the whole government, especially the white house and the u.s. trade representatives office, you know, has to look at these issues like they're very high priority for the united states. and if they don't, it's hard, it's really, really hard to sell them. >> there was another hand back here. julie, in the second row there. >> julie, i'm an independent consultant from usaid and feed the future. thank you so much for all you've done over the past 40 years and what you've done to sort of lay the foundation for future feed the future. i have an impeding question and then a more serious question. and then the first one is sort of, what -- on this getting beyond the ideological divides,

did you think that we made a mistake by essentially xing out earmarks? because, you know, earmarks and sort of the horse trading that goes on around that money for particular districts, i think, you know, if we looked back, sort of provided a currency, a trading currency that was maybe more important than we realized. so that's one. >> let me answer that. yes. now, i think that earmarks need to be transparent. and, you know, you know, a wink and a nod, you find a bridge to nowhere is a bill and going to embarrass people, or the museum that became a big issue in one of my campaigns which really cost nothing but it was a big issue. so i think that earmarks need to be transparent. but i think it is almost impossible for a legislative process to work without people feeling they have some investment in the system. and during my years in congress when i was able to get a few things in a bill, usually not

giant things, i voted for the bill. i mean, i was supported the whole by getting -- that's just the way -- it's the way all institutions work. it's the way families that's the way families work. why would we think that a congress doesn't work that way. so yes is my answer. >> so we look forward to that answer in a by partisan -- my more serious question, we have a tremendous responsibility with this foundation. i'm struck by private sector stepping up in a number of ways, particularly on sustainability issues and sort of moving beyond trying to think how this foundation, you know, might serve as more of a public platform for not just talking about climate change and those sorts of -- and biotechnology, important as they are, polarizing issues and really talking about what are the key issues that are facing us every day, so the droughts in the

west, sort of the increase of insects and pests and sort of really, really framing research priorities in terms of those immediate problems that people are seeing and our ability to grapple with them over the next five to ten to 25 years. so i'm wondering about the, i guess, priority setting process that you foresee for the foundation. >> well, first of all, secretary vilsack has taken the leadership on this and appointed this commission. we're going to meet for the first time next week. we have not yet met as a total group, and we have to map out our strategy and what our investments are going to be in. and if you look at the legislative history, it's not real specific on this. the only thing is it requires a match. so we can't spend money on our own without a match. and i think the implication is that we should deal with gaps, where we acknowledge that we don't know.

and i am sensitive to your point because i've always talked about the asteroids, the things that could come and hit us and destroy us in some way, you know, and so i would be prone to not wanting to do too many real long-term things. but i do thing that we can -- we can partner with the private sector, partner with the university community. i mean the fact that we have to match it means that we need their help as well, and i expect and hope that that could come, but i appreciate your comments. >> there was another hand over here, wasn't there? >> right there. >> okay. over to the other side. >> well, sir, my name is brad, a student here. my question regards the intersection between agriculture policy and what we call business policy. there's a lot of criticism that the agriculture industry is sort of moving toward higher consolidation, larger squeezing of sort of mega agricultural corporations and the influence that they play not just on how food is made but things like

international trade policy and sort of the broader agriculture frame. so my question is what role do you see sort of consolidation producers and the checks and balances that the government has or in some cases haet not placed on the corporations down ter that criticism. >> that's a good question. overall, first of all, we've had a trend toward consolidation generically in almost every industry in the last 50 years in this country, so -- banking, airlines. there are basically three or four airlines that fly everywhere in this country, so it's kind of generically true. i guess in hindsight our government could have been more forceful and aggressive and kind of looked at competition in perhaps a more cosmic way. i think they've done it rather clinically, to be honest with you, in approving a lot of these merg

mergers. but in saying that, there are a lot of positive trends in agriculture too. the amount of locally grown agricultural entities is growing exponentially. organic agriculture is growing fast. and if you look in all the supermarkets now and if you look at the major food companies, they're developing organic product lines, but not just them. i mean it's happening abundantly around the country. so walmart is sourcing locally now. ail thoerks walmart is perhaps not the best example of talking about what you talk about because they sell over 20% of the food in the united states, but they are sourcing locally and they're trying to build a local market as well. and there's a great demand for american people to know where their food comes from, and that creates a kind of counterdemand to large-scale agriculture. but, you know, i don't think

we're going go back to mom and pop agriculture in this world. i think the global economy and marketing, transportation, processing, it takes size in many cases to feed people. the counter side of that is the public demand to eat and choose a die yit they want to eat and not necessarily be -- not necessarily be a supply-driven atmosphere but a demand-driven atmosphere. there is a lot of more interest by average consumers and what they eat today than ever before and they're not accepting what is sold to them and that will perhaps produce a bit of an antedote to the concern that you raise. but notwithstanding that, i would not look phenomenally to a different structure of agriculture in the future. i do think there is a trend on consumer demand that never existed before. remember the movie "field of

dreams," if we build it, they will come, i don't think anymore if we grow it, they will buy it. i think that has changed and people are demanding that they have some input into that process, and that's really good. >> another question right down here, the lady in the third row. >> i'm from the embassy of denmark. the last five, tell years there's been a lot of talk about the new global order in world economy and international relations, do you see a new global order within agriculture? i'm, of course, i thinking about the brick countries, how china is buying land in africa and the importance of food security in international relations. >> that's a tough question. you may want to take that for a minute. i mean there are a couple of trends that are happening here. obviously brazil has become one

of the most dominant agricultural players in the world in large part because of the help our research staff provided them. that's another reason why we need to make sure ours is not secondary but primary in the united states. and the demand of china and india is dramatic. it's changing not only the course of production but changing climate issues, changing demand issues. the other change is diet. i mentioned before, you know. it's like we're now beginning to realize what you eat has a lot of impact on how long you will live, and that's new. i don't think in all my years on the house agriculture committee we ever held a relationship between how healthy you are and what you eat. it's just nonexistent. those are all kind of new trends in this process, so i suspect the global order will change. i think the united statess will be a leading force no matter what happens given our productive capability of

producing food that not a lot of other people have, but no longer can we kind of set the rules. the rules are going to be set by huge buyers of food, new producers of food, environment issues, and diet. i think those are the four things, i would say. i don't know if you have any thoughts on that. >> no. i think that's good. there's another question right here. chris? >> thank you, very much, for a really interesting chat this morning. i'm the minister counselor from the australian dynasty. the question is a little bit naughty, but i suppose -- certainly there's a somewhat schizophrenic culture of the way u.s. looks at agriculture policy and you were talking a little bit earlier about this push to buy local and yet we also have a huge push from the

administration to buy u.s. products in the rest of the world. looking in that almost schizophrenic nature of the way the policy is being pursued at the moment by u.s. agricultural interests is often difficult, i think, for other countries to understand, and i'd be interested in any thoughts you have in that area. >> i don't think it should be too difficult. you know,ite note the do as i say, not as i do. they want to protect their producers, produce as much, sell as much, not have to buy as much unless we desperately need what you want and open markets wherever they exist. historically overall u.s. markets have been fairly open. that doesn't mean there aren't some restrictions in some areas. but overall our markets have been open. although australia, new zealand,

you have changed your farmg in the last couple of years and have become much more open in terms of your economy and everything else. i think the administration is doing its best to open exports, think wisely so. i told tom vilsack i envy him. he has presided over the largest amount of exports and imports in the united states. part of it is because of the value but part of it is working with the private sector in getting exports moving. these tensions are going to always exist, and i just think they've got to be worked as sensibly as possible, and we have to understand our markets have to be open as well in order for us to continue to pressure to break down barriers because most of them are outside the united states. quite frankly, barriers to our agriculture products are much greater than they are for people trying to get into our markets overall.

>> another question. let me exercise the chair with one. you know, agriculture figured prominently in the foreign aid agendas in the united states and most other high-end income countries up until the mid-1950s. and then it went into steep decline. none of it declined more proportionately than agriculture research within that foreign aid agriculture agenda. congress -- members of the house have two-year terms, members of the senate have six-year terms. how do we get research with the fact that gestation periods for technologies are two years. how do we get the kind of commitment it's going to take the feed the world's larger population better than today? >> it's a great question, and i would say that somehow we've got to link the research to benefits

to humankind. we did that in the 1950s in terms of the research that vast segments of the developing world were never done before. tlink there has been a feeling that the research agenda over the last 20 or 30 years hasn't been as innovative and as supple and as necessarily productive, at least in the public sector. in the private sector, they've been able to produce certain benefits to crops and other things that i think people have found very beneficial. the issues -- you're ultimately going to drive people with issues that affect their gut. some people said it's terrible that the nih gets so much research and agriculture doesn't. i said, well, if you've got cancer, or alzheimer's, you understand why it gets more research than agriculture because it impacts people's lives so directly. and i think we have to do a better job of that in relating the benefits both to agriculture but also to the consuming

public. and it's tough to do, but at least there's the growing recognition led by you and others that this trend does need to change. we'll probably never get the money that the national institutes of health osh science foundation, but we need to be on the upside rather than the downside and the story needs to be told a lot better than it has been told. shakespeare said the play is the thing and it's true in selling agriculture research or anything else. >> is there another question? yes. in the middle, third row up. >> hi. i had a question about the research priorities that you've been mentioning, both fronts, what we call quantity and quality. so you want more research and you want better pryioritization.

any thoughts based on a hypothetical with the new funding you soon will. two or three most promising areas if we had the money or focus, we could put more money for a greater yield. >> you know, gap -- again, we need to analyze where the are the gaps in the research. that's where folks like bob and others can probably let us know better than we have. of course, i'd like do an in-depth study of the duplicative nature of the agriculture studies being done to determine how much is necessary or not. that's probably why i'll never be president of a land grand college, but i -- you know, a couple of things. water. water-related resources, utilization of water, yields, yield increases, how we deal with that, pests and disease. both plants and animals in this changing world but i also think we need technological research.

how can you develop the devices that can get information to farmers faster. it's the world of high-tech, silicon valley as well. we need to think much more broadly than just looking at kind of traditional agriculture research. and then the final thing is diet. you know, if there's anything that confuses the american people, it's this cacophony of information out there about what you should eat and how it relates to your health, and that area is crying out for research. there are many other areas. that's just a few that i would mention. >> anybody? yes, over here on the side. >> david leishman. i'm with usda. i was wondering if you could maybe comment on -- you talked a lot about political dysfunction. as an employee of the u.s. government i see a lot of bureaucratic dysfunction as well. i'm wondering if there's anything that could be done to make a more direct connection

between the political decision-making and the larger objectives that are made in congress and how those are transmitted to the bureaucracy and sort of encourage efficiency in the bureaucracy rather than sort of responding -- >> that should be all new since i left the usda. you know, it's a very good question. you know, i know that there's plenty of dysfunction, bureaucratic dysfunction when i was there as well, but i would tell you one point. this is going to answer your question a bit more indirectly than you would probably like. if the american people do not believe that the government is doing their job competently, abably, and functionally, they will lose confidence in it and they won't support it anymore. so all the stuff we've seen about the obama carrollout or the v.a. hospital thing or katrina or this or that, that makes people think the system doesn't work, and so why should

they support it at all. i think that's a big problem. there's a guy at usda who i've become very close with, matt mckenna, works with tom vilsack, came to the senate to work on some of the problems. i think we need more people like him throughout our government to help -- i think it's a great tribute to our secretary that he brought somebody like that in here. but, you know, if your job as an employee if you see this dysfunction is to find a way to root it out. i know it's easier said than done. when i was at usda, i think i drove people nuts. i used to walk around the hallways and walk into offices and say, how are you doing, and i think i either drover this crazy. but ultimately leadership has to extract where those things are happening that you deal with. my experience at usda was actually pretty positive in terms of by and large the

employees there who serve the customers or the public pretty well. a lot of these demands were placed by congress, you know, and forced their hand to doing things certain ways because a member of the house or senate had that in his mind, but i don't demean what you're thinking. i really worry about our government being able to stand for value. and if it doesn't, it really turns people off. that's bad news for, quote, political dysfunction. >> okay. is there one last question? okay. before we thank the secretary, let me just announce the next two events in this series. tomorrow at 12:30 across the street in the building, room 737, professor emeritus gerrie nelson of the university of illinois who was the author of the recent chicago council and global affairs climate change and agriculture report, he's going to be talking about public sector agriculture research

priorities for sustainable development in a world of climate change. and on december 10th, back by popular demand he's going to be speaking at 10:30. tosos, you may remember, for the last decade or so he's been the chief policy analyst in the office of the agriculture european commission, so we're looking forward to these next two events in this series and we're already working on the schedule for the spring semester from the beginning of february till may. so thanks to all of you for coming today and join me in thanking secretary glickman. [ applause ]

. here's what's ahead today on c-span3. coming up next, the heritage foundation hosts an event on jobs & the economy. and then a discussion on health insurance marketplaces. and a little bit later, a look at the ebola outbreak and global health concerns. here's a look at tonight's prime-time programming across the c-span kneltworks. here on c-span3 at 8:00 earmark it's remarks from the kennedy center, deborah ru rutter. on c-span 2 at 8:00 we'll slow you a citizen conference,

they'll discuss what it means to be a citizen. speakers include retired general stanley mcchrystal and on c-span at 8:00, we'll have more congressional retirement interviews. our interviews include senator carl levin of michigan around representative ralph hall of texas. these are part of our week-long series. this thanksgiving week c-span features interviews from the entire members of congress. watch the interviews tonight through 8:30 p.m. eastern. >> i don't want to look back at that so much as to look forward to the next couple of months. in the next couple of months, there's a couple of things i'd like to do. one is to get my defense authorization bill passed. this is an annual effort, a major effort involving large amounts of staff. i also want to finish up work on permanent subcommittee

investigations looking at some gimmicks which are used to avoid taxes. >> i've been a member of congress for 34 years. you know, to finally get beat, if i was a manager for a baseball or a football team and i had a 34-1, i'd be in the hall of fame. so it doesn't bother me any. and really it didn't bother me to get beechlt i wasn't set on going, but i had 18 co-chairman who were chairmen of my 18 in my district who were supporting me and wanted me to run and i did. >> also on thursday, thanksgiving day, we'll take an american history tour of various native american tribes. that's at 10:00 a.m. eastern following "washington journal." then at 1:30, attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the new diplomacy senn never the washington with former secretaries of state and supreme court justices clarence thomas,

and sonia sotomayor. that's kour coverage for this week. for more, go to c-span.org. last year several hundred signed up. some of the lessons learned from last year's rollout and what enrollees can expect this year. it including the former health reform director. she's joined by the alliance of health reform and commonwealth fund who co-opened this event. this just under 90 minutes. >> i'm director of lectures and seminars. we weekend those of you. we would ask that everyone turn

their cell phones off and we'll post it on our heritage home page following our presentation today. opening our session is jennifer marshall. miss marshall sieves as our vice president for the institute of family and community and opportunity. she oversees our research areas that determine the character of culture, education, marriage, family, religion, and civil society. she also heads our richard and helen de-voss center for relation and civil service society, she manages our family.org for social science on those issues an prior to joining us here, she worked both at empower merck and as senior director at family studies and the family search council. poli please join me in woking jennifer marshall. jennifer? >> thank you, john. we're really pleased to debut this index of culture and opportunity and here with me on

stage is david, my colleague. he directs the center for principles and politics. the reason we wanted to start the conversation here today is david along with ryan anderson continued the introductory essay of culture and opportunity. and before we got into the 31 indicator indicato indicators culture and opportunity, we wanted to talk about it as a whole. we wanted to talk about a few of those ideas today. david and i are going to take about ten minutes to do so before our main panel comes up. i'm very pleased to have my former colleague and co-editor forthis project, ray headerman to be the moderator for that panel. ray is the vice president for

the buckeye institute in ohio and will be leading three of our contributors to this project in a conversation about hue we -- what opportunity is and how we can grow it in this country. let me start here with the conversation with you, david, by asking, you've made the observation, obviously, that the premise behind this index is we have the interrelation of economic and social issues. in fact, you remarked that's the first line of page one of this index. can you tell me a little bit about -- you're somebody who looks at the founders and founding principles. can you tell me from your perspective how you think they would have looked at this conversation today that we sometimes have between economic and social principles. >> yeah. i think they would have found it strange that people label themselves based on a particular subset of issues they care about and say, this is what i care about. and this is going to be my governing philosophy. i think the founders being statesmen had a much more holistic approach.

and their concern -- i mean they told us what is without a doubt the most beautiful line in the constitution. it's the last line in the preamble for why we have a constitution. to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and -- this is the key part -- to our posterity. there's a concern when you're founding up a rem mgimen to set up in such a way that it will endure. not just that you will be able to enjoy your liberties right now, but that there will be a next generation. more importantly, that this next generation, too, they will also be capable of enjoying the blessings of liberty. and this is how i think we should start to think about the family and these -- i don't like the word social issues.

you want to limit something. what's going fill the void? it implies these are issues that matter only to religious people or traditionalists. i think the founders would have understood the family's a core political issue. you know, maybe to translate it in wonkier d.c. terms, the social and economic issues in this regard are deeply intertwined. what's going to come in and take that place? so, you want to limit something. what's going to expand and fill in the void? it has to be self-governing individuals and a vibrant civil society. how do you produce self-governing individuals? what is the cornerstone of a vibrant civil society? it's families. a defensive marriage serves the ends of limited government more effectively, less intrusively and at less cost than trying to pick up the broken pieces of a shattered marriage culture. >> so opportunity is not necessarily a word that we find on every other page of the founders, but you would argue, i would think, that it's imbedded in their writings. can you explain that a little more? >> yeah. you don't really see references to opportunity and equality of opportunity, which has become the rhetorical linchpin of the right in america. it's really a 20th century term. it begins to appear in the late 19th century, but it's not the language the founders used. that said, it is imbedded right there in the declaration of independence.

once you proclaim that all men are created equal, what you're ultimately saying, in effect, is you're denying the fundamental principle of every heiress trow caratic rem men. you're saying that actually your -- if all men are created equal, it means you're free to pursue happiness as you see fit. that means you need opportunities to pursue that happiness, to pursue a career of your choosing, to marry who you want, to worship god according to the dictates of your conscience. you need to open up opportunities for people to live out their lives as they see fit. that's not necessary under the regime and in an air forristocr. you don't get to move and that's it. so imbedded in this idea of equality is the notion of opportunity. soo so what is the source of

opportunity? where does it come from? how should we think about this? >> i think that's a great question. you know, some on the left will say that it's government spending. that they like to say that we need to invest in opportunity and that means pumping more money into the economy to create jobs. i think the proper way to think about it on the right is two-fold. one, will be free markets. i think everybody knows that already. what free markets do is create these opportunities for you to hone in on a particular product that doesn't exist, a service that doesn't exist, or a better way to do something. that's not very controversial. the other thing i would like to emphasizes, and i guess to remind a conservative audience, is that opportunities not only come from markets. they also come from the rich network of human connections we have. they come from the people we know, from the communities we belong to. and one very important source of opportunity in people's lives is being part of thriving communities. and one problem we have in many areas -- for people who have deficit of opportunity is not only are there few economic opportunities available to them, civil society has broken down and it really becomes a society of disjointed individuals rather than interconnected individuals. >> so we've heard the metaphor

of a ladder of opportunity quite a bit. but one of the words that comes up in the conversation that i've had with you about opportunity is capacity quite a bit, that it takes something more to grab hold of that ladder. so can you talk to that issue a little bit? >> yeah. so we love this metaphor that the american dream is about a ladder of opportunity that you need to climb. well, what does it take to climb that ladder? i would appeal to one of my favorite americans who i think is one of the greatest apostles of upward mobility that this country has ever seen, frederick douglass. he gave a famous speech on self-made men. what was the -- what was the recipe? what was the recipe to their success? his answer was a simple one. work, work, work, work. not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting work in to which the whole heart is put in which temporal and spiritual matters is the true miracle worker.

as franklin put it in a letter to aristocrats who were moving to america, america is the land of labor. here is where we work. i don't know if any of you watch do ""downton abbey."" al job? what is a job? this is not the american ethos. work has to be a cornerstone of an opportunity world view. the other things that are important are obviously character, grit and determination. and i'm rather encouraged in this regard to see that the left is starting to talk about these things. for the longest time there seemed to be a divide that conservatives would talk about character and virtue and the left was more interested in solutions that dealt with programs and transferring money. i find it encouraging to hear more and more voices on the other side acknowledging the importance of character. and lastly, of course, and rather obviously is education and having a solid education with the skills you'll acquire to climb that ladder of opportunity, but i would prioritize them if there that order. work, character, education.

>> opportunity doesn't necessarily have the same ring to everybody who hears it. what do we do about that? >> yeah. so conservatives, like i said, have -- and libertarians for that matter, have made opportunity the rhetorical linchpin of our government. i think that's excellent. it appeals to many people and it is very much in keeping with our traditions. i think we should remind ourselves on the right to also speak of security once in a while. that the opportunity message will appeal to many, but that there's something unsettling about opportunity. there's something unsettling about markets, about the churning that they produce. and the left is very good at alleviating the concerns of people who feel inskecure. and i think we have much to offer in this regard. we believe in a strong safety net. we recognize that people fall on hard times and that they need to be taken care of. i think conservatives and libertarians need to remind themselves to keep opportunity at the forefront, but remind yourselves once in a while -- or

ours, pardon me, to speak of security and to address these concerns too. >> thank you, david, for joining me to kick this conversation off. >> thank you. >> we're going to exit the stage and ask the next panel to come up. while they do so, i'll make a couple of other comments. as you can see, david azerrad and ryan's essay helped us to shape an outlook on opportunity that looks at it as the capacity to enjoy the blessings of liberty today and to be able to pass them on to the next generation. that's a critical goal for us in the institute for family, community, and opportunity, which we launched here at heritage in june of this year. the index of culture and opportunity is the flagship publication of that institute. and it was launched in july. the contributors, the panelists you see here today, were all contributors to that. and my former colleague and good friend ray headerman, who is now executive vice president of the buckeye in ohio was co-editor.

i was very glad to have his partnership. he'll lead a conversation with three of our contributors to the volume. over to you, rea. >> thank you, jennifer and david, for that great introduction for laying the groundwork of why culture and opportunity are link and why it matters. let me go through my panelists. on my immediate left is steve moore. steve is the current chief economist at the heritage foundation. his second stint at heritage. he was back at the heritage back in the '80s before he decamped to the kato institution, president reagan, senior economist to the u.s., most recently was on "the wall street journal" editorial board. so i know heritage is glad to have steve back in his role as chief economist. in the middle is heather

mcdonald, thomas c. smith fellow at manhattan institute and editor of city journal. recipient of the 2005 bradley prize. she's worked on many different issues at city journal covering homeland security, immigration, policing, homelessness, education policies, families and businesses improvement districts. to her immediate left, far left, last but certainly not least, another former heritage colleague of mine, chuck donovan. now the president of the charlotte lozier institute. before that he was legislative director of the national right to life committee. he also worked as a speechwriter for president reagan and helped lead the family research council for nearly two decades. previously was senior research fellow at civil liberty society at heritage foundation. as jennifer mentioned, they were key writers and contributors to our index, taking a look at an indicator and say, what does this indicator mean, how does it fit into the overall scope of culture and opportunity, and why is it important. well, the index focuses on two things, culture and opportunity. what do we mean by culture? in this definition we're laying out saying, let us measure the

health of american families, our civil institutions. civil opportunity looks at what type of educational achievement are our students getting. how likely are you to find work? what are the chances of starting your own businesses? you still have the opportunity to be successful in business as you were in the past? now, i want to take you back in time to about 20 years ago when then vice president dan quayle was embarked in a dispute with a minor tv character called murphy brown over the role of single motherhood. this is considered a key part of the cultural war. the sitting president of the united states in a silly debate with a television character. now you're starting to see, and i would argue you start to see a little more consensus saying, maybe the murphy brown wars about single motherhood shouldn't be lumped in just the cultural war argument, but there's a social economic component as well. consider the work of charles murray in coming apart that takes a look and says, family breakdown is occurring upon

people who didn't go to college, while college educated elites, marriage is a very stable and growing institution. it is very strong by comparison. then take a look most recently, that sommer isabel of brookings institute wrote a book called "generation unbound," looking at how the rise of single motherhood is harming the economic prospects for a lot of young women. now just monday "the washington post," robert samuelsson wrote a piece he entitled "family deficit" in "the washington post" taking a look saying there are economic problems that are arising as we see the breakdown of family and culture. so, i guess my question is, are we coming to consensus where maybe cultural issues is impacting economic opportunity? is the left coming on board, like david alluded to? what has changed the discussion since murphy brown to where you have, you know, brookings talking about the breakdown of the family? >> well, ms. sawhill has been a leader in understanding the

catastrophe that is the rise of single parenting. so i don't think that she's necessarily indicative of a change. and i think we've still got a lot of ground to conquer in spreading the understanding as widely as possible of the relationship between family breakdown and poverty. i still see the classic story on "the new york times" complaining about poverty and the difficulty that poor families are having getting by. it is almost never pointed out explicitly that what they're talking about is single mothers. and i'm also concerned on the other side that republicans are starting to talk about single mothers as if they were an ta logical categories.

in campaign speeches you hear the pitch to single mothers, as if they simply exist by some kind of fiat, divine fiat, as opposed to being the product of choice. and i think that the real key is personal responsibility. and we have to make the message that gets harder and harder to make, send it out, that fathers are absolutely crucial to their children. and feminism makes that very difficult. so it's a constant battle. >> i have one perspective to that. you know, robert rector writes, think, brilliantly in the index of indicators about the course of welfare over the last 40 euros. the argument to the question of self-sufficiency rather than increase in poverty. and we tend to talk about single mothers. and i think the instinctive reaction i have to that is, is that a bit of finger-pointing and blaming? this is the person who has

stayed with the situation, which wasn't ideal, is raising the child. isn't it a case that she's the single mother present and yet you have a single father too. he's absent. we have to begin to account, i think, for the full picture of why that single father is absent. certainly i think radical feminism is part of that. you could certainly say to a certain degree that pro-life movement is part of that, which i'm a part of that, which provides means for single mothers to have their children. we basically, though, have a flight from responsibility. and i think at the end of the day, we are not only damaging self-sufficiency, we're damaging a deeper notion of resilience. any economy, certainly the one we have now, with our ups and downs, we've had a recession under a conservative administration, we've had growth under a liberal administration, we've had policies that punish success, that punish enterprise, i think we have a spreading pessimism.

i see it in dozens of other indicators about a future. what a family gives you, an intact family gives you the sense that whatever calm comes, you've got layers of resilience that can help you rebound and also help you achieve your goals, but i think we can spread the blame pretty widely for this attitude of, i think, diminishing responsibility and diminishing hope. >> so, steve, you're our economist. last friday, the federal resolve border chairman janet yellen and others have talked about communicate and equality where it's a huge threat to opportunity that middle class are struggling to get by and we're not seeing, you know, the american dream achievable for a lot of people, particularly born at the bottom. is anything coming in an economic problem? what is going on here? >> i want to just first point out that i think there is a lot of reason for optimism.

i think a lot of these positions that we have been taking about the fact that parenthood matters, i think that's becoming more accepted. but then, you know, you see what hillary clinton said on friday where she made -- and i think -- maybe we're not making progress that we thought we were. by the way, that is related to this because, you know, one of the things that you find in your excellent report is that we have seen a decline. maybe that's because there's a war against business that is extremely destructive. i wanted to get off that off my chest. it just happen add few days ago. >> is his mike working? >> i deal with tax rates, as you do. i deal with the labor force issues and elasticity and things

like that, but, you know, i read the entire speech. i read the entire speech that janet gave. and she talks in great length about income inequality. what's interesting is she never brought up any of these issues of culture and family. as i look at the data and the evidence, obviously, i think that tax rates and all these other things matter. but there are two things that really are the key to reducing poverty. a free enterprise system, which is, you know, i think we'd all accept, but the second is a noneconomic factor, marriage. marriage is the best anti-poverty program out there. it's much, much more effective than hundreds of billions of dollars we've spent trying to come back with welfare programs. i have come to the conclusion

that when you look at people at the bottom of the income scale, those people in the -- that we call poor that are in that bottom 20%, a huge percentage of them come from broken families. and the other thing that's interesting about people at the bottom, is a point that you kind of alluded to earlier is that when you look at those people in the bottom 20%, over half of those households have no one working. so if no one was working in the household, how in the world can they get out of poverty, right? now, you can give them money, which the government does, but you're not doing anything to lift their lives. i want to square the circle by saying, it goes back to what david and jennifer were talking about getting up on the rung of the ladder and climbing up. if no one is working in the household, you are not on the first rung of the economic ladder. if you don't get on the first, you don't get on the second, third, fourth, fifth. i would say that's why work is

important and marriage is important. >> i would say, again, we need to find the language, again, to valorize fathers. and it's boys who are hurt the most if they don't have a father in the house. of course, there's wonderful single mothers that are doing the best they can. and many of them are heroically raising children who are capable of seizing opportunity. but on average, males and females bring different gifts to raising children. and boys do need their fathers. and what they learn are some of those other virtues that we don't always talk about which is so important to being able to seize the opportunity that is out there, which is self-discipline, deferred gratification, being able to realize that you've got to study at night rather than going out and partying or hanging out on the street selling drugs. and so i think one of the chapters in here talks about

drug use. sobriety is also a very important virtue that is necessary for building the civil society that david and jennifer spoke of. so i think it gets harder and harder to find that language of saying no. women are strong, but they can't do it all. we need fathers as well. >> let me just add something to this. you know, there's this great chapter on drug use. look. i'm a libertarian. i feel like what people do in their own house is their own business and so on. but it's interesting. i've been doing a lot of work with a guy named bob funk who runs the biggest employment agency in america. he employs 400,000 people a year, probably more than any private sector employer in the country. he has been telling me

consistently, look, there are jobs out there. this idea that there aren't jobs -- there are jobs out there for people who have skills. he was saying, they had a recent opening for 500 employees at a new factory. they got something like -- i don't remember the exact number. 6,000 applications. out of those 6,000 people, he said over half of them couldn't pass a drug test. if you got half the people who can't -- they're not going to get employed. they're not employable. that's an example of this being a cultural problem, not an economic problem. >> the meth problem is very scary. >> right. >> i think that's one thing that charles murray didn't talk about in his book that he could have is that's what's happening in the lower extra item of our economy is this very scary spread of meth use, and it is completely hand i capping people in their opportunity to seize the opportunities that are out there. >> i was wondering -- we see a

lot of business reports saying middle america, blue collar america, heavy manufacturing, you have a lot of companies that want to hire. you have a lot of people out of work. because of the cultural factors, businesses aren't able to handle them for trustworthy jobs because of drug use. you know, when we did the index, we laid out the cultural sector. we tried to walk through three different sections. the first looks at pure culture and then moves into personal responsibility. then we end with opportunity. we laid that out for a reason. and so my question is there a chicken and egg? you know, do you need a strong culture to be able to build strong opportunities? is this kind of how vital is us to keep our strong civil institutions to maintain kind of the economic growth and pros sparety that americans enjoy? >> let me give you an example of how culture -- in a very broad sense right now -- affects our economy. you are right.

there that are being unfilled. there is a kind of new kind of cultural dimension to the idea that blue collar work is not acceptable. you know? blue collar work is for immigrants and other people. look, blue collar work is tough work. there's no question about it. but, you know, we have millions of jobs that could be filled by people with two years of junior college, getting some kind of apprenticeship, getting a vocational skill. and if you're good at those kinds of things, you can rise up -- you can start as a welder or carpenter or electrician and then become a foreman. these are not low paying jobs we're talking about. these are jobs that pay sometimes $60,000, $70,000, $100,000 a year. they are going unfilled. it's partly -- my point is this is partly attitude. we need workers who have skills, who can make things and fix things. and i think the reason those jobs aren't being filled is a kind of cultural issue that it

is beneath the american worker to do that. >> i would say there's a schizophrenia in the right. we occasionally hear people speaking as steve does absolutely accurately about the nobility of all kinds of work. at the same tierjs conservatives have gotten sucked into the mantra that everybody should go to college. i know so many well-meaning philanthropists in new york city who are running programs for inner city kids. and their measure of success is invariably how many kids they are sending to college. that's obviously a good thing to go to college, especially if you are going to college out of a passion for learning. and when you're there, it's a good thing if you realize that this is your best opportunity to read the greek tragedies and shakespeare and george elliott

and learn the periodic table and be filled with a joy. but it is not necessary to go to college to have a productive life. and the more we have this idea that you are a failure unless you've gone to clnl, we're going to water down the epidemic standards of college so much as is already going on that it's virtually meaningless. so i think that we have to get our message straight here and not cave in to that notion. >> this is almost more prevalent on the right than the left. >> i think there's the whole question of motivation for work as well. i believe theologically and socially in the value of work and nobility of labor and the need for a drug-free workplace. i walked past a construction site this morning. the first thing you see is a ladder down to a 20-foot pit and next to it is a sign that says this is a drug-free workspace.

i think for the vast majority of people, in the area of 1950s to 1960s, low tax, booming economic growth, a democratic president cutting taxes, family formation through the roof at least post-war. the motivation for work, while it's noble to make a good jet engine for g.e., if you go there, noble to make good soap for procter & beganable, most of the people who went to work went to work because of what happened at 6:00 at night. they brought home a paycheck to a spouse, to a family and they viewed their lives and their work lives as serving these almost hired guns, maybe hired higher goods of family, of church, of community. i think when a community lacks this kind of broad resilience -- we have communities in the country where the single motherhood, are they out of wedlock, birth rate is 70% plus,

the question of what are you working for becomes inspiration and motivation. while we do noble things at work, i think the tradition is what i get is my other life, what i bring home. there's deficits there tied to culture to economic opportunity. >> you know, chuck, you mentioned the communities and what ties communities together. i think one thing that has been in the news a lot, and, heather, you wrote about crime, about how you think about crime and kind of many different areas. but you don't think about what the reverse of crime is, safe neighborhoods. if you want good communities with opportunity, you need to have a place for safety. i see writings again, bipartisan issue where they say great social programs doesn't work if societies aren't safe and communities aren't well policed and crime rates are down.

what's the story on crime? >> it's mysterious, puzzling, fascinating because it contradicts both the liberal and conservative means about how to fight crime and how society works. the liberal story about crime is that it's a product of inequality, of poverty, of racism, and that you cannot solve crime, you cannot lower crime unless you get rid of p poverty, racism, and inequality. therefore we need large social programs. the left is always pushed back against law enforcement, wanting to do big government instead. conservatives such as myself will say we cannot expect to live in safe communities when you have this catastrophe of family break down, when you have boys being raised without any expectation that they will be expected to show the basic, most fundamental aspect of personal responsibility, which is raising their own children.

both sides were wrong. we have had since the early 1990s, the largest and most sustained krie eed crime drop o. nobody predicted it. it has defied every criminologist's expectations. what did not change radically was the level of inequality and poverty in this country, nor did family breakdown improve. so both liberals and conservatives were wrong. what changed? primarily in my opinion what made it -- the difference was effective policing. this was a revolution that came out of new york city that held police commanders accountable for the crime in their neighborhoods. they studied data every single day. they made policing efficient. they went after crime patterns when they broke -- when they were breaking out. they took care of quality of life, which is civility offenses, what's happening on the city streets that make people feel like they are living

in a chaotic, disorderly environment. and we did have a prison increase. now, this is a very controversial topic now. there's a lot of discourse about the negative effects of mass incarcerati incarceration. conservatives are jumping on the ba bandwagon here. i would caution them because i think that the incarceration did play a part in dropping crime. the way this plugs into opportunity is now you have businesses that are able to open up in neighborhoods without worrying about the safety of their employees. you have people able to shop at night. restaurants opened up. new york city was transformed. and the crime drop is what preceded the economic activity. the one thing that conservatives are right about, it's not that you need the booming economy to get rid of crime.

you lower crime, and that allows economic activity to flourish, and that's what we saw in new york, and that's spreading in other cities as well. >> just one kind of point of clarification is, you know, you're right. there's a rethinking of fighting crime on the right. that's a big deal now. but it seems to me that has to do with nonviolent criminals. it seems to me there's a thinking about should we treat a drug user differently than we should, you know, an ampled robbery, someone who's invading -- that's an interesting debate that was really emerging on our side, whether the criminal justice system is creating a class of criminals, people who are 19 years old who were involved in some kind of nonviolent offense. the jury is out on that, i agree with you. whether it comes to people who are convicted of a violent crime, put them away, that's one

way of cleaning up the streets. i wonder whether you would make that distinction between non-violent versus violent criminals? >> prison remains a lifetime achievement award for persistence in criminal offending. it is not the case that there are harmless marijuana smokers that are in prison. you have to work very hard before a district attorney says, okay, i'm actually going to throw you in the slammer. it's extremely disturbing as a layperson to hear the world view of district attorneys and what they consider serious and nonserious offenses. the nonserious ones are the ones they're not going to prosecute such as stealing a car. now, i submit, if your car is stolen, that's kind of serious. but in the district attorney's eyes it only becomes serious if you actually use a gun to steal it. in other words, hijack it with somebody in the car itself. so the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people

in prison are there for violent and prop it crimes. the increase in prison population for at least the last ten years has been exclusively from violent and property crimes. and i would also just bring up something as a -- prophylactically, the other element of this is the idea that drug laws are racist and that they are -- they are responsible for the disproportion of blacks in prison. well, blacks are 37.5% of the state prison population, which is where the majority of prisoners are. 88% are in the state prison population. if you remove all drug offenders from the state prison population, the percentage of black offenders in prison drops from 37.5% to 37%. so there's not much effect

there. and when you go to an inner city police community neighborhood, this is what you will hear every single time. we want the drug dealers off the corners. you arrest them. they're back the next day. why can't you keep them off the streets? the reason the police are enforcing the drug laws is because that's what the community wants. >> i will say though that to me it's plain. the most parents will want their children to avoid having to have the police be their source of inspiration to abide by the law. this is really where the home functions. with both the mother and father in agreement on general rules like not being out at 2:00 in the morning because nothing good typically happens at 2:00 in the morning. we want children to internalize the rules. so to the extent that my children were involved in the police, they were told what to say to the officer. please and thank you, basically. they didn't have their rights violated. they had internalized the laws

before the encounter. that's what you want to have happen. in too many communities, the father and mother are not there in the home when the moment of inspiration to possibly commit a crime happens. >> let me touch on a point i think heather you talked to about the idea that you had a breakdown in communities because there wasn't enough -- a little bit of economic opportunity with big spending. so, chuck, you hear a lot about this is that if there's more economic opportunity, would you have more marriageable males that the family broke down because there wasn't enough economic opportunity. is that a fair kind of critique of the economic prosperity of the nation, that we didn't create enough jobs and that's what led to the downturn of the family? >> steve cited the number of jobs at there. they are at a skill or commitment level where the individuals are not poised to take advantage of it. i think it's a question of too few chickens and too few eggs. the ability to seize an opportunity is about resilience.

as i say. it's also about a little bit of push. i mean, my parents -- not to get too personal again. but the idea that we could spend a day out of the home and not have done something useful or that would be reported back to them that we had been rude to the person at the local community grocery store, they wouldn't have had to hear about that directly from the grocer store owner, they would have heard it from the other seven customers in the store who knew the donovan children and got the word back. the community has to have a kind of coherence so there's this level of self-control and self-restraint that combines with an inspiration to work and a duty to work and a responsibili responsibility. somebody who depends on you. they say among soldiers, for example, that when you go out on the battlefield, nobody dies for the country. they don't die for the king, they die for the guy next to them. they fight for the guy next to them because they have that bond. i'm afraid with the fraying of family and community, we're asking people to become these

insular individuals who somehow see achievement in the workplace as something they can self-generate. i don't think that's how people work. >> not working is a learned behavior. right? and so we see that -- we know this, that second-generation children of parents are welfare are more likely to be on welfare. dependency is a kind of learned behavior. the one thing that i just -- i had to get out there is, for those of you who know me, you know i'm very critical of bauk, i'm very critical of his economic programs. there's one thing that is admirable about barack obama, which is by all accounts he's a great father and a great husband. and that -- i just -- i get so frustrated that he doesn't -- we need more role models. and especially, you know, we know that family breakup is much more prevalent in the black community than it is in the white community. i mean, i just wish that the president would play that role of the role model more

effectively than he does. because i think he can change lives in a very productive way. if he would do that. whereas our culture kind of glorifies single family households. i mean, look at tv and the movies and things like that. that does have an impact. >> on your question about the convention argument that william julius wilson made, that it was the lack of economic opportunity that led to crime and other problems of the inner city, i think mr. donovan has started to rebut that. and i would add that what we saw in the great depression was an economic catastrophe that fortunately we still have not repeated to that full extent. but horrible joblessness, worklessness, poverty. and crime was very low. whereas in the 1960s, you had a very robust economy, and crime started going through the roof.

so crime really is a cultural issue. it's about the rule of law, whether people have been given the values to respect the rule of law, whether they have the family orientation of that self-control and deferred gratification and the family structure that will say, no, you do not steal just because you want something. so i -- you know, we're all agreeing very heavily on this panel. but i still think the message is not out there enough that family structure is the most important thing. and america is suffering from it more than other european countries. and i think that unless we can figure out a way to rebuild the family at all income structures, we're going to have a very hard time with our economy. >> before we conclude and leave -- i want to leave time for questions. let me just ask one question for

each of you. if you could take a look at one trend that we illustrate, that highlights a culture or opportunity, what do you think you'd kind of like to put your finger on and say, this is a good indication of where we're going, and are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future? >> i'm going to go with labor force participation. which is something you touched on. because i think it does get to the issue of people not accepting the whole concept we talked about. about the dignity of work. i just want to put one kind of fine point on this. you know, i think it would be a good thing if younger people worked more. you know. and it's interesting. if you say this -- i remember in maine the republican governor wanted to make some changes to the work rules to make it easier for young people to work. i'm talking about teenagers. my god, the left went crazy. oh, my god he's trying to repeal the child labor laws. so on, so forth. i've been looking at the statistics on this.

and it turns out that the younger someone starts working, it's a pretty good lead indicator of how successful they are over their life. so this idea that we shouldn't have 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds working, that's crazy. it's a good thing to get them working instead of in front of a computer screen or a tv screen. it gets to the idea of why the minimum wage is a horrible, horrible idea. because you're actually denying the work opportunities of people who are young. one last thing on this. i know we're running out of time. i have said this a million times. i think everyone can -- the most -- one of the most important jobs i ever had was my first job. you know? it was a minimum wage job. you learn basic skills. you learn how to show up for work on time, how to be nice to your boss, how to run a cash register. those things stay with you for life. so this -- this cultural idea that it's a bad thing for young people to work is completely wrong. it's a good thing. parents out there, get your kids out there working.

it will pay off in life in spades over time. >> insightful point on the minimum wage, the impact on youth and employment. a new study came out, national bureau of research, higher mill minimum wage. heather. >> i would keep an eye on crime. we have had this extraordinary crime drop that has freed up more opportunities in poor inner city neighborhoods. and we should be able to keep it going as long as we keep policing strong. we're living now in a moment of very scary delegimatazion of policing, with the idea that cops are racist, which i reject entirely. there are bad cops. there are impolite cops, cops with an attitude that need retraining. but by and large, they are going where crime is and they are going to help people that are being most victimized and that's

in inner city neighborhoods. we're seeing now shootings across the country against cops because of the reign of al sharpton and a very poisonous rhetoric out there. when people start shooting at cops, that's a real worry sign for the rule of law in civilization. >> shooting at cops literally or figuratively? >> well, both. >> it's happening both. >> right. that being said, just to repeat myself again, hoping mr. donovan would agree. i think if we could reverse the inexorable rise of out of wedlock childberg, that would be the most important thing we could do for our culture. it seems to be just unstoppable. but if we could get more people to say, the best thing -- more mothers to say the best thing i can do for my child is to give him his father and more fathers to say, i have an indefeasable