with that i'll turn it over to my aei colleague adam white for our first panel. >> welcome, everybody, and i just want to echo naomi's greetings for all who are here today and everyone watching online either now or at a later time. looking forward to the questions and the conversation. our conversation started last week, one of the usual pre-panel prep calls and in the course of thinking through this morning's conversation, somebody, i can't remember if it was elizabeth or marcy pointed out that 2025 is the 100th anniversary year, centennial of the famous supreme court course, pierce versus society of sisters, one of the earlier cases, the supreme court proclaimed the broad right of parents to control to the extent the education of their children and a famous line where the court says the child is not the mere creature of the state, these who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right and high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations. my guess is that in a conversation like the ones we're having today, practically everybody could agree with that statement wi

aei wants to associate ourselves with these endeavors and proud to partner with the murphy institute and brookings. a couple remarks about this report which you were going here from from the panel. one of the things i like about is it stresses what's great about our country and what's going well. our productivity is rising. our economy strong. we are a good and great country, and our economy is the envy of the world. this report makes that clear. it also highlights the extent to which we have reduced poverty and the united states significantly over the years and that is another great achievement, one i think was the result of a a lot of efforts by people to come together with solutions that solve these problems in in a way we can l agree to. one sidebar i'd note, i was pleased to see the percentage of children being raised in single-parent families was recognized as something we should he concernedam about, tht it was something that reflected a belief that children do better in households where there are two loving parents for the long haul. that is something which i got into this bu

mobility and economic insecurity and equality in the causes and effects of poverty and before joining aeij he served as a executive director of that joint economic committee under chairman mike lee, where he created the social under social capitol project multiyear researchpi project. investigate the involving nature and social relationships. there is a section of the report you know on social cabinet. and there's also a section on trust as, you analyzes with excitement. [laughter] thank you. this fantastic question being involved in to the great job and glad to be part of it. also my time talking about the capitol and justice. frequently, i think everybody if you ask you hundred different people question it hundred different answers and people of encampment collocated capitol is something that is productive for people financial capitol and physical capitol and so, kettles productive and for people, they define their goals in life and of the their social so there's better relationships from different people but also relationships to the social institutions as well. so in a social. [inaudi

prior to joining aei, kevin worked as vice president of policy, vice president of research partnershipsand senior fellow and director of the government's project. he is the author and editor of several books, including "congress overwhelmed: the decline in congressional capacity." for many years, he worked at the congressional research service, so he is a long hill veteran. the task before us now is to think about what comes next. we had a discussion of all the things troubling the 118. we are going to think about the prospects for the 119th. we have a different configuration of course. democrats no longer control the senate. the publicans have taken control there. we have a new majority leader for the first time in many years. senator john thune. where does that leave us? let's turn back to the house to start with. in the house, in the 118th, the starting count i believe was 222 -212. republicans had a 10 seat margin to start. in this congress -- check me if i get this right. as of today, 219-215. it is probably going to go down in a couple of weeks to 217-two hundred 15. just the narr

aei is very involved in the discussion of what needs to change in higher education so i begin by saying a great love but i want you all to know i certainly want michael to know that we think there needs to be a change . the confidence in higher education colleges and universities are way down . polls show that . only 36% of americans have a great deal of quite a lot of confidence in highereducation, down from 57% in 2015 . worse, 32% have little or no confidence compared to 10% . 32% of americans have little or no confidence . so our view is part of this is because of actions and leadership in behaviors that have taken place on major universities, the lack of respect of viewpoint diversity, not enough viewpoints from maybe the right of center and others feel that something is missing. and insufficient respect for our country and a respect for the values our country stands for and accomplishments our company country has had and maybe even a loss of commitment to the canon, the great works of scholarship and literature and art instead of a new disciplines that are quite in our opinion as

i want to thank naomi and aei and others for hosting. this panel is called protecting or overreaching? parents rights and child welfare interventions. it means very little introduction because of course the question as to whether the system is effectively protecting or overreaching is hardly novel or new. nor is the fact we often have some very interesting and strange political bedfellows in child welfare. in fact, to prepare for this panel i started to do a quick google to make sure i was going to be using the correct terms. i first stumbled on parental rights movement which wikipedia described as a socially conservative political movement aimed at restricting schools ability to teach or practice certain viewpoints on gender, sexuality and race without parental consent. but at the very top of the wikipedia page they had a disclaimer that this was not to be confused with the parent rights movement which was described as a civil rights movement primarily interested in human rights affecting related to family law including child custody. i

thanks aei for inviting me as the least distinguished member of this panel. so over the last 25 years i've handled cases, child abuse and neglect cases as judge spent several years as a child advocate for georgia where i got all the complaints. everybody had a complaint about the system. ran the system, i am a child welfare lawyer, i litigated these cases. i found it interesting this morning we spent time talking about, what are parental rights? what are children's rights? i do have a few thoughts on that. number one, it's certainly clear that in fact, all of our constitutional supreme court comments on this have been consistent. the custody, care and raising of children resides first with the parent. but we also have to remember that whose primary function and freedom include reparations for -- preparations for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder. as marcie said earlier this morning, parents and become martyrs themselves but they are not free to martyr their children. so there is i think an appropriate balance that is reflected in most of our

before joining aei, he served as the executive director director of the joint economic committee under chairman michael lee, where he created the social capital project, a multiyear project to investigate the evolving nature of social relationships. there is a section of the report on social capital. there is also a section on trust. scott, you have a hunting license for the next five minutes. scott: great to be back at brookings. i am alsoan alum of the brookings institution. fantastic product to be involved in. doug and his team did a fantastic job. glad to be a part of it. i will talk about social capital , as bill suggested. very quickly, what is social capital? ask 100 people, you'll get 100 different definitions. social capital has two words in it. you start with capital. something that is productive for people. financial capital, human capital, physical capital. social capital is productive for people however they defined their goals in life. the other word is social, so our relationships to people, also our relationship to social institutions, as well. in the social capital pro

james pethokoukis of aei and jared bernstein, former chair of the cea.coming up, the data center derivative play. vertiv one of the best stocks in recent years, down 7% today on disappointing guidance. they make liquid cooling systems for ai data centers. and remember, the shares had plunged 30% during that deep sea sell off a couple of weeks ago. so what is going to happen with demand now? we'll ask the ceo next. and as we head to break, take a look at stocks on a volatile session. the nasdaq erasing a 1% loss to turn positive on headlines about trump looking for a resolution in ukraine. the dow erasing a 489 point loss. it's down 190. the s&p down a quarter percent. and the ten year still sitting post cpi at 464. we're back after this. >> this is the exchange on cnbc. >> individually each of us is great. >> but from. >> here you. >> can see we're one big team. at atlassian we believe real progress takes all of us working together on new sources of energy, cars that drive to the future, even pizza deliveries. together we can go beyond where we've ever b

. >> with aei. >> i've been. >> i've been waiting and thinking derek what what your take. >> is. >> going to be on all of this because i can't even tell whether we. should be thinking. >> about tariffs on. >> mexico and canada anymore. >> i think we have to. >> i think the. >> president could. >> have. >> kicked this four. months down the road. >> he has the april 1st, april. >> fool's day trade studies scheduled. you could have easily pushed this off longer. >> i think he only wanted. >> to push it off. >> for a month because. he's not satisfied with the current situation. so to be clear, i think tariffs on. >> canada are insane. >> there's no justification. >> for them. at all. i don't. >> think tariffs are the. >> right response. >> to. >> a real problem with the. >> mexican border, but. >> just because that's the reality of things doesn't mean that we're actually off the hook. >> i don't think. >> you can. >> rule out a tariff. problem with canada and mexico in march. >> and as you said, if that's the case. >> then the. >> 10% tariff on china doesn't matter. >> anymore because. >> we'

this isn't my first time speaking at aei, but it's my first time speaking since they completely redid this building. maybe it's my first time speaking in this building. actually. i remember the old one and it's an organization whose events i've long attended and whose scholars i've enjoyed interact them with and working with. so thanks very much, jeff and yuval levin, who couldn't it tonight for for hosting me and indeed auspicious that my event in d.c. comes on the third anniversary of the notorious tweet that was the seed for what eventually became this book, lawless. indeed, it was three years ago that news of justice breyer's retirement broke and i was commenting all day in my area of expertise my last book as mentioned, supreme disorder, was about the politics of judicial nominations in the supreme court. i was commenting in the media and that night coming back to my hotel room, not a best practice, by the way. here's your and he lawyers. here's your seely component do not doom scroll twitter late at night when you're on the road getting more and more upset as in my case i was ab

>> it could be a lot, 20% couldn give aey lot back to the taxpayo >> l spill in grand, this i thes theple's money so doge, it is their money an d our money. >> well, you know what is crazy is that the withholding, forye instance, everybody gets year if 26 weeks of the paid every two weeks. they sayth the reason they do tp lewithholding is for the convenience of the american people. one of the people you were talking about in the video, thef said it makes it easier for people to budget as a convenience. i'm not getting a refund.et if you get rid of 7,000 irs people and they can't process mh refund, by the way, that was not a refund the money i should havn never paid.it hi overpaid to the irs. with that money alone stayed with the american people, $81 billion a year that i could earn by having money at the bank n thrather than sitting with ths and may be going to ukraine. >> laura: it is criminal. it is criminal we spend $1 trillion a year on interest on we our debt. it is criminal we spend millions of dollars in afghanistan. it is criminal. but is stealing from the american people and t

aei came out with a piece, and, dylan and katrina, they're saying don't subsidize childcare, remove roadblocks make births free. do you feel, dylan, for family formakers right, this is something that this is a critical economic issue, it's a critical socialish issue. you don't see it immediately, but you do kneel the effects out, that there should be some sort of government intervention to restoke the flames of, hey, we should have family more nation and -- formation and things like that? >> the ultimate paradox in the last two decades is on the one hand they're saying, well, we're not having enough births, you know? everything's unaffordable, but then we're going to the improve important millions upon millions of immigrants can make -- charles: right, right. >> it's kind of this doom loop. if you want to place an economic sniff, demographics is deaths theny. -- incentive. i think that would be great for family formation in the united states. charles: they talk about starter homes here. there's no starter homes. >> there aren't. charles: how do you incentivize a home builder to make a starter

here at aei, we are helping the most vulnerable members of our society and children who are in most need of our attention. as many of you know come up to 90 percent of families involved with the child welfare system are suffering from substance use abuse. many are hard-pressed to think of any children they care for whose families have not been dealing with alcohol, drug use, or mental illness. it would not be an exaggeration to say that the drug crisis in this country is actually driving the child where fell crisis. pediatric poisonings are up, parental intoxications are up, young children are being unsupervised for hours or days while their carers get their fix. across the country, tens of thousands of children are being neglected by parents who are too affected by alcohol or drugs to be responsible for their care. research suggests between 400000 and 480,000 children born each year have been prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol. unfortunately, even if these children to come to the attention of authorities, and there is increasing pressure from activist to ensure that they do not, fix

and another rhetorical move is to pretend that i hate aei, whereas i hate generative ai and i want make a better i want to say i'm not saying boycott a.i. forever i'm saying boycott this stuff that sucks so we can have something that works. but, you know, people like spin their rhetorical wheel and ad hominem attack is the easiest way. yeah, yeah. there's actually a piece in i tripoli there's an interview with me last week and it's basically like, why do i put up with all of the ad hominem attacks and like, why am i doing this? why are you doing this? because i think so much is at stake, you know, two little kids. i want them to live in a positive world. and we're clearly an inflection point like, i'm not going to do this for another five years. i'm losing my voice now. but this is the moment where we're going to make these decisions decisions, one person asks, we as educated adults are doing the research to try and understand. i what are your thoughts on how we handle teens? and i i. i wish i had a fuller answer i mean i think let's start with some things i can say for sure. there's no

i'm really thankful of naomi and aei for fostering this really important conversation. as someone who has been doing work related to the struggles for i'm shocked to say 35 years i'm thrilled that these questions are coming to the fore in a much more meaningful way. so, i want to say that i agree with the general propositions, absolutely children belong with their parents in their families. there ought to be some serious showings before you are able to disturb that. the fact that one and two black children at home are investigated before they are 18 and one in three white children are investigated -- for all children, i shouldn't say white, one of three american children are investigated before their 18th birthday ought to alarm all of us. mostly because of the trauma that this causes families and the balance of power between a parent and their child that is really confronted in a harmful way to both. i think one thing we really need to be asking ourselves is if we are conducting that many investigations nationally, may be 25% of those investigations result in something

aei deals with a whole range of issues. core values relate to opportunity, promoting civil society, and generally supporting constitutional unlimited government. host: bob, you are executive director director of the education law center. tell us about the mission into you work with. guest: thank you. the education law center is a nonprofit organization, a national one that works to protect and strengthen public education and the rights of students. so, we do that work through -- we work in court areas including school funding advocacy, protecting the public miss of public schools and also working to advance students civil writes. -- rights. host: there were reports this week that president trump is finalizing plans to dismantle the department of education. rick, do you agree with that effort? guest: you know, there's a lot of moving parts. what do we mean first? sure. first, it's important for the viewers to understand the big distinction between the department, none of whom are educators or run schools. and the federal pro

aei deals with a whole range of issues. core values relate to opportunity, promoting civil society, and generally supporting constitutional unlimited government. host: bob, you are executive director director of the education law center. tell us about the mission into you work with. guest: thank you. the education law center is a nonprofit organization, a national one that works to protect and strengthen public education and the rights of students. so, we do that work through -- we work in court areas including school funding advocacy, protecting the public miss of public schools and also working to advance students civil writes. -- rights. host: there were reports this week that president trump is finalizing plans to dismantle the department of education. rick, do you agree with that effort? guest: you know, there's a lot of moving parts. what do we mean first? sure. first, it's important for the viewers to understand the big distinction between the department, none of whom are educators or run schools. and the federal pro

. >> thank you the last question, i know that many of us on my side of the aisle think that the aei isut power more than anything else. i think diversity actually is very healthy for our country and it is the backbone of the strength of our country and i think diversity equity inclusion is political movement that has very little to do with the advancement appeal based on merit they have to offer more to do with what about gaining power political position. as an trump and i worked a lot on black colleges and universities and he was able to take the funding to the highest level the history of the country first present the only present to make the funding permit. there's no doubt that our country still struggles the issue of race and when shining examples merit based system that helps those who do not have the perspective that the american dream for example i don't think it can you commit to the efforts of president trump and supporting black colleges and universities yes and with president howard university week ago we sat and talked for a lot of the different programs that were offered