1 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:22,679 We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Tashnsky, 2 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:26,000 culture editor here at The Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:26,039 --> 00:00:30,399 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:30,719 --> 00:00:34,079 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and to the premium 5 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,759 version of our website as well. Today we're joined by Michael Tanner. He 6 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:41,880 is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. He's the 7 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:46,000 author of The Inclusive Economy and also the author of a new paper that we 8 00:00:46,079 --> 00:00:50,799 are going to dig into today. Michael, thanks for joining us. What 9 00:00:51,039 --> 00:00:54,600 is the pleasure to be with you? Nett, tell us about I've read 10 00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:57,640 the paper, but tell the audience a little bit about this latest paper that 11 00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,320 you worked on. If you could sort of distill the ur the central argument 12 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:03,640 that you're making, that would be awesome. Sure. The paper looks at 13 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:08,959 the question that we're facing today of reparations for African Americans, and I think 14 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:15,560 that it basically makes the point that you can't deny the sort of downstream impact 15 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:21,640 of slavery and Jim Crow and ongoing inequalities in the in the economic system that 16 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,079 just put African Americans at a disadvantage. So the moral claim that African Americans 17 00:01:26,079 --> 00:01:30,799 make the reparations is probably something that shouldn't just be waved away. There's something 18 00:01:30,799 --> 00:01:36,040 that we should pay serious attention to. That said, we need to recognize 19 00:01:36,159 --> 00:01:42,560 that there are practical difficulties that make reparations probably impossible in the long run and 20 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:47,920 probably not very effective in terms of relieving African American problems. So we should 21 00:01:47,959 --> 00:01:53,959 be looking for more forward solutions, facing solutions, things like changing zoning laws, 22 00:01:53,159 --> 00:01:57,359 the police, reform, school choice, things that will give that a 23 00:01:57,439 --> 00:02:01,200 level of playing field today, rather than sort of looking back at what we 24 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:05,760 can do to make up for the sins of the past, and what are 25 00:02:05,799 --> 00:02:07,759 some of those because actually, later, one of the things I did like 26 00:02:07,960 --> 00:02:13,240 about the pieces that your point about the downstream effects really can't be denied, 27 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:16,680 and we can talk about it as you do the effects of maybe well intentioned 28 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:22,039 government policies as well, But tell us a little bit about what you see 29 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:27,639 as some of the most obvious or the most workable solutions going forward as well. 30 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:30,520 We sure in terms of things that are going forward, Number one is 31 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:35,879 we need to deal with zoning laws which basically have locked racial segregation and housing 32 00:02:35,879 --> 00:02:42,199 into place over the years. The fact is that many whites bought into neighborhoods 33 00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:47,759 back when it was restricted by race, and that there's values and hosing rises, 34 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,439 and we put in more stricter, restricter zoning laws to prevent other types 35 00:02:52,439 --> 00:02:57,120 of housing and other types of low cost units from being in that area. 36 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:04,080 We perpetuate the segregated outing patterns of the past. If you look at demographic 37 00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:07,520 zoning maps from say the nineteen thirties and you look at them today, they're 38 00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:13,960 very little change in terms of where various racial groups live, and that is 39 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,280 a result of government policy in many cases. Second, we need to look 40 00:03:17,319 --> 00:03:21,719 at education. Where you get your you know, your zip code to large 41 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:28,000 attend large extent determines how good your education is going to be. We don't 42 00:03:28,039 --> 00:03:30,360 give parents the choice to get out of failing schools, and the fact is 43 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:38,000 that public schools have failed African Americans and continue to do so. Right, 44 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:46,039 and so the point about you in the paper you talk about how reparations if 45 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:49,599 we if we take the ideas for reparations at face value, which is important 46 00:03:49,639 --> 00:03:53,919 because California, as you know it is working on this at the moment, 47 00:03:53,039 --> 00:03:59,039 and you know, other states could follow suit if we take the idea that 48 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:05,759 reparations are are morally justified and go on to envision what may happen if some 49 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:11,719 type of workable solution from the left was enacted. You also say, you 50 00:04:11,879 --> 00:04:15,600 argue that would not necessarily be good for the black community either. Well, 51 00:04:15,639 --> 00:04:18,399 that's right for a lot of reasons. I mean, first of all, 52 00:04:18,399 --> 00:04:21,439 we should recognize that some of the proposals out there are not really meant to 53 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:26,040 be taken seriously. No one is mailing five million dollar checks to every African 54 00:04:26,040 --> 00:04:30,000 American in San Francisco an each time soon. But that said, there are 55 00:04:30,079 --> 00:04:34,680 some proposals out there that need to be looked at more seriously. That sort 56 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:38,720 of eschewed the idea of white guilt and talk more in terms of about a 57 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:42,680 corporate responsibility that we have for government actions in the past, which is a 58 00:04:42,759 --> 00:04:47,800 very different set of circumstances. That said, money to pay reparations would have 59 00:04:47,839 --> 00:04:51,879 to come from somewhere. It's going to be either taxes or debt, depending 60 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:56,639 on whether you're talking about the state or local levels or federal government doing it. 61 00:04:57,160 --> 00:04:59,639 And that's going to have a tremendous impact on the economy. It's going 62 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:01,319 to cau jobs, is going to slow economic growth, it's going to limit 63 00:05:01,439 --> 00:05:06,040 entrepreneurship by making it harder for African Americans to find jobs or start businesses. 64 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:11,879 Is not exactly remedying the problem that we set out to fix. Yes, 65 00:05:12,079 --> 00:05:16,759 that could clearly be a little bit counterproductive on that, and tell us so 66 00:05:17,399 --> 00:05:20,399 these what we were just talking about, a lot of this is actually rolling 67 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:25,240 back, like zoning for instance. This is that there are government policies that 68 00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:30,600 are in the way of prosperity or greater prosperity opportunity for the black community. 69 00:05:32,959 --> 00:05:36,360 How would you describe is that the case that actually a lot of this that 70 00:05:36,759 --> 00:05:41,279 some of these solutions actually can go after things that are already in the way. 71 00:05:41,879 --> 00:05:45,240 If that makes sense, well, that's that should be the primary focus 72 00:05:45,319 --> 00:05:47,639 right now. That if you simply pay reparations, that's going to do nothing 73 00:05:47,639 --> 00:05:51,600 to desegregate housing. If you pay reparations, it's going to do nothing to 74 00:05:51,639 --> 00:05:56,759 make these schools and the inner city better. What we really need to do 75 00:05:56,839 --> 00:06:00,639 is be looking forward and how can we change circumstances from this point on, 76 00:06:00,639 --> 00:06:05,079 Recognizing that the situation isn't fair today, But we can't go back or fix 77 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:09,600 the problems of the past. It's just much easier to criticize them than it 78 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:13,680 is to repair them. And simply doing what we've been doing, which is 79 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,319 throwing money at this situation, hasn't worked so far. What we really need 80 00:06:16,399 --> 00:06:21,120 to do is be having a different way of looking at how can we level 81 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:26,160 the playing field for African Americans. Well, and this also eliminates the problem 82 00:06:26,199 --> 00:06:33,040 with reparations that is just enduring and incredibly difficult of Even if we did agree 83 00:06:33,079 --> 00:06:40,879 to do some sort of reparations, who qualifies who gets money and from whom. 84 00:06:40,959 --> 00:06:46,279 That's an enduring problem. But these solutions wouldn't really actually even run into 85 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:49,399 a roadblock like that one. Well, that's right. These are essentially race 86 00:06:49,519 --> 00:06:56,199 neutral solutions that will have a race conscious impact if you will that the African 87 00:06:56,199 --> 00:07:00,720 Americans are more likely to go to failing schools. School choice will benefit African 88 00:07:00,759 --> 00:07:03,879 Americans more they were likely to benefit middle class white students. But it's nothing 89 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:08,360 on the face of it that says that this is a race conscious solution. 90 00:07:08,439 --> 00:07:13,319 So in that way, it's unlike affirmative action or unlike the type of situations 91 00:07:13,319 --> 00:07:16,319 and the Supreme Court seems to be striking down right now, which are facially 92 00:07:17,399 --> 00:07:26,319 raised based and the other. We can actually go to the first thing that 93 00:07:26,319 --> 00:07:29,399 we mentioned here, because I think that's one of the most interesting questions, 94 00:07:29,399 --> 00:07:33,240 and you address it at length in this paper, the moral justification for reparations. 95 00:07:34,399 --> 00:07:39,560 If you were in conversation, as I'm sure you have been with the 96 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:44,519 skeptical conservative, maybe a skeptical black conservative, you're in conversation, maybe with 97 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:49,720 Thomas soul, and you're making the point for why this case should be made 98 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:55,279 to a skeptical conservative who says a lot of this, you know, post 99 00:07:55,439 --> 00:08:00,600 the last couple of decades is not the fault of wide Americans. It's not 100 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:07,360 you know, the continue the continued effects of slavery. What would your response 101 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:11,199 to that be, Well, I think it's true that it's not the fault 102 00:08:11,399 --> 00:08:16,600 of white Americans, and I don't think most of the serious reparations proposals are 103 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:20,920 sort of based on this idea of individual behavior, the idea that well, 104 00:08:20,959 --> 00:08:26,000 my grandparents never owned slaves, therefore I'm not obligated. Nobody is suggesting that 105 00:08:26,040 --> 00:08:31,120 it's about individual sins of the past. But you have here is government action, 106 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,600 and there is sort of a corporate liability that cruise to government action. 107 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:41,399 Now, if you if somebody's car hits a pothole because the road is badly 108 00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:43,840 maintained, they have a claim against the city, even if that is going 109 00:08:43,879 --> 00:08:46,799 to be paid for out of taxes from people who had nothing to do with 110 00:08:46,879 --> 00:08:50,600 road maintenance. And that's that's a long standing legal tradition. And I think 111 00:08:50,639 --> 00:08:54,639 the same thing applies in terms of reparations. These are government policies. The 112 00:08:54,639 --> 00:09:00,759 government enforced segregation, the government enforced slavery, and I think that there is 113 00:09:00,759 --> 00:09:03,320 an obligation to make up for what the government has done in the past. 114 00:09:05,759 --> 00:09:13,440 Yeah, that's that's interesting that it's a reparation from the body that is responsible, 115 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:16,720 and obviously it's representative of the people, but it's the government sort of 116 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:22,360 shouldering the weight of the burden rather than individuals shouldering not. Well, that's 117 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:26,600 right, And you know, I do think that we can't say that all 118 00:09:26,639 --> 00:09:31,879 African American problems are based on past behavior by the government or by white people 119 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:35,039 or anything of that nature. Well we can suggest, however, is that 120 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:41,559 you can't have a ten lap race. We'll have one of the racers where 121 00:09:41,679 --> 00:09:43,919 changed for nine of the ten laps and strike them off and say, Okay, 122 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:46,759 everything is equal. From this point on, I think we have to 123 00:09:46,799 --> 00:09:50,960 recognize that there are costs that have accrued in the past. For example, 124 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:58,080 there's about ten to fifteen trillion dollars in lost wealth to the African American community 125 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:01,440 because of lost wages from slavery or when African members are paid less under Jim 126 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:05,200 Crow and so on. That's wealth that doesn't exist in the community today that 127 00:10:05,279 --> 00:10:11,200 can't be used to build businesses and to stimulate entrepreneurship and things of that nature. 128 00:10:11,799 --> 00:10:15,840 Now, we can't go back and pay fifteen trillion dollars in compensation, 129 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:20,480 but we can look at those things that understand why there are inequalities in the 130 00:10:20,519 --> 00:10:26,080 system today. Yeah, I'm reading from a Thomas soul op ed here. 131 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:31,600 It's from two thousand and one, and he writes decades of propaganda from black 132 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:35,480 leaders have also convinced many, if not most, blocks their achievement has been 133 00:10:35,519 --> 00:10:37,919 due to political activism, and then end to racial preferences and quotas would mean 134 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:41,039 an end to their progress. Blocks lose most of all of the version of 135 00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:46,559 their efforts and energies into seeking reparations that they're not going to get instead of 136 00:10:46,639 --> 00:10:50,919 into the many economic opportunities that pay off a lot bigger. So actually, 137 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,639 Michael, this is almost the sort of happy medium. Your solution is almost 138 00:10:54,679 --> 00:11:01,679 the happy medium here to pursue opportunity sort of rebranded as reparation, to say 139 00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:09,440 there is a case for inequity as a consequence of slavery, as a consequence 140 00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:15,120 of jim as a consequence of discrimination. The band aid not the band aid. 141 00:11:15,159 --> 00:11:20,200 The solution isn't to hand out money. The solution is to roll background 142 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:26,120 tape and to people give people the opportunity to prosper. I think that's exactly 143 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:30,799 correct. I mean, look, politics doesn't have to be zero sum, 144 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:33,679 But on the other hand, political capital is not infinite, and to waste 145 00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:41,639 political capital on a sort of chaotic chase after reparations that are never going to 146 00:11:41,720 --> 00:11:46,279 happen, I think it's wasting an opportunity that we have right now. When 147 00:11:46,279 --> 00:11:50,480 we're having kind of a long term discussion about race and what it means in 148 00:11:50,519 --> 00:11:54,320 America. We have an opportunity now to make some reforms. We should be 149 00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:56,840 realistic and what we're trying to achieve At the same time, we should also 150 00:11:56,879 --> 00:12:01,559 recognize the simply doing what we've done for the last fifty or sixty years in 151 00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:09,200 terms of throwing money it's various problems hasn't worked. And simply rebranding throwing money 152 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:13,039 at the problem is now as reparations isn't going to make it things any better 153 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:15,759 than they've been in the past. Yeah, I was going to ask about 154 00:12:15,759 --> 00:12:20,279 that. You know what, Obviously we've already sort of talked about downstream wage 155 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:22,960 loss, for instance, what studies have found. And actually I think this 156 00:12:22,039 --> 00:12:26,320 is something that conservatives ignored to their detriment, that government policies, as you've 157 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:33,480 mentioned, actually specifically and in ways that we can I think understand with even 158 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:41,000 quantified numbers and data, have actually directly led to inequities. It doesn't apply 159 00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:45,559 to every individual, certainly, that's not the case. It doesn't mean that, 160 00:12:45,639 --> 00:12:50,000 you know, somebody born in nineteen ninety is guilty of what their ancestors 161 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,519 did in eighteen ninety and eighteen fifty seventeen ninety. It doesn't mean that at 162 00:12:54,519 --> 00:12:58,200 all. But it does mean that at least some of what we're seeing if 163 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:03,559 you think of generational wealth. I know a lot of people on the right 164 00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:07,039 in particular, get frustrated by that because they don't have generational wealth. You 165 00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:11,279 know, they look at their own lives and they don't see white privilege, 166 00:13:11,879 --> 00:13:16,440 and that's entirely understandable. On the other hand, there are some cases, 167 00:13:16,799 --> 00:13:18,799 obviously, there are some cases in the aggregate. When you look at it, 168 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:24,320 there's there's clearly an effect. What effect, then, have well intentioned 169 00:13:24,360 --> 00:13:31,639 government government policies had on exacerbating some of these iniquities since the War on Poverty 170 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,120 and the Great Society in particular, Michael, Yeah, I mean, we 171 00:13:37,279 --> 00:13:39,840 certainly have made a lot of progress in this country and we've tried very hard 172 00:13:39,879 --> 00:13:43,320 to remitty the inequities, but they're still there. I mean, if you 173 00:13:43,399 --> 00:13:48,679 look at terms of unemployment, to mald race, poverty, race well, 174 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:52,679 intergenerational wealth, all those sorts of things, you find that they are not 175 00:13:52,879 --> 00:13:58,159 evenly distributed by race, and a lot of that can be traced back to 176 00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:03,600 these sort of downstream impacts that we've been talking about. Now, how do 177 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:05,639 you go about fixing that? I think that what we need to be doing 178 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:11,600 is looking at the problem itself and saying how do we fix that problem? 179 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:13,720 Not trying to sort of reach back and say, how do we fix the 180 00:14:15,159 --> 00:14:18,200 original cause we can't do that. I mean, essentially, the debt we 181 00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:24,639 owe African Americans in terms of slavery and Jim Crow and four hundred years of 182 00:14:24,679 --> 00:14:30,919 maltreatment by the government is not a payable one. So let's let's get real 183 00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:35,120 and see what we can do. You wrote a book called The Inclusive Economy, 184 00:14:35,159 --> 00:14:39,480 as we mentioned at the top, and actually this is this paper is 185 00:14:39,919 --> 00:14:43,879 in the same sort of thematic ballpark of that book. And in the book, 186 00:14:43,879 --> 00:14:48,120 I'm reading from the description because it's a it's interesting to talk about combining 187 00:14:48,159 --> 00:14:54,039 social justice with limited government. Your plan includes reforming the criminal justice system and 188 00:14:54,039 --> 00:14:56,120 curtailing the warrant drugs, bringing down the cost of housing, reforming education and 189 00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:58,720 give more control and choice to parents, and making it easier to bank, 190 00:15:00,039 --> 00:15:03,480 they borrow and invest. I want to talk about the War on drug point, 191 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,000 because that is interesting. We saw the Trump administration pursue it, and 192 00:15:09,039 --> 00:15:13,559 now a lot of people on the right criticizing Trump from the right on the 193 00:15:13,919 --> 00:15:18,720 particular his policy in that case, the one that sort of famously brought together 194 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:24,919 Kim Kardashian and Ivanka and Jared. But what role does the war on drugs. 195 00:15:24,919 --> 00:15:26,200 I can imagine a lot of people on the left saying, actually, 196 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:31,799 that is one of the very biggest roadblocks right now to escaping the cycle of 197 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:35,440 poverty in the black community. So what role from your perspective does that play 198 00:15:35,639 --> 00:15:41,519 in this entire landscape. Well, I think the whole criminal justice reform issue 199 00:15:41,559 --> 00:15:46,279 often gets oversimplified as being either soft on crime or tough on crime. And 200 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:50,399 in reality, what African Americans want, and what low income people want, 201 00:15:50,480 --> 00:15:56,279 and what Americans want is effectiveness on crime. They watched to find people who 202 00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:00,519 are repeat criminals, people who are causing problems, peop who are violent and 203 00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,279 take them off the street. And the fact is that, especially in low 204 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:07,679 income communities, far too often the policing is haphazard. The clearance rate for 205 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:14,120 crimes is very small, the amount of efort put into actually finding criminals is 206 00:16:14,639 --> 00:16:17,919 pretty small. At the same time, in order to make the charts look 207 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:22,480 good and make your arrest rates look good, there's often an over emphasis on 208 00:16:22,799 --> 00:16:26,039 petty crimes that are out there. So you start arresting people with marijuana, 209 00:16:26,159 --> 00:16:32,320 for example, or simple possession of drugs, and often that that builds up 210 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:37,840 your stats but doesn't do anything to get real criminals off the street. Yeah, 211 00:16:37,879 --> 00:16:41,720 that makes sense. Are there are other I guess things in that along 212 00:16:41,759 --> 00:16:45,320 those lines. So we're on drugs and we're talking about I mean, obviously, 213 00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,879 again, like Thomas soul Is, a lot of people on the right 214 00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:53,039 would would say, there are cultural roadblocks that will just you know, we 215 00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:59,639 can do opportunity zones, we can do reverse zoning laws, we can we 216 00:16:59,679 --> 00:17:03,080 can do all of these things, and there will still be deep seated sort 217 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:10,240 of cultural problems, for instance, a single parenthood etcetera, etcetera, although 218 00:17:10,279 --> 00:17:14,480 there's probably an argument actually that single parenthood itself is downstream a sort of great 219 00:17:14,519 --> 00:17:18,519 society. We're on poverty, government policies that can be changed in and of 220 00:17:18,519 --> 00:17:22,839 themselves. I imagine you're actually probably familiar with some of those things in the 221 00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:26,880 welfare system that could probably be tweaked in a helpful way. Well, we 222 00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:33,000 do just incentivize marriage and in marriage childbearing through the welfare system. We also 223 00:17:33,079 --> 00:17:38,000 discourage marriage in a number of other ways. We do know that it's generally 224 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,160 better to be married than not because the two incomes is better than one, 225 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:48,200 although cohabitation often has made a big difference than in those terms. But it's 226 00:17:48,279 --> 00:17:52,799 also we know that women who have children outside of marriage are much more likely 227 00:17:52,839 --> 00:17:56,359 to be poor than those who don't have children or who wait until after they're 228 00:17:56,359 --> 00:18:00,400 married to have children. That said, the question is exactly who poor black 229 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:04,240 women are going to marry. We often behave as if this is giant pool 230 00:18:04,319 --> 00:18:10,359 of inner city computer programmers that are just waiting for them. The reality is 231 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:14,039 that a lot of our policies have made it difficult for African American men to 232 00:18:14,079 --> 00:18:17,039 get the type of jobs that are going to support their families. That you 233 00:18:17,079 --> 00:18:19,720 do have to deal with the criminal justice issues in the inner city. William 234 00:18:19,759 --> 00:18:23,839 Julius Wilson points out that about a million and a half young Black men have 235 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:29,039 been taken out of the marriage pool because they now have criminal records or tied 236 00:18:29,079 --> 00:18:32,000 up in the criminal justice system in some way that makes it difficult for them 237 00:18:32,039 --> 00:18:37,440 to be a good provider in terms of a family. Yeah, that's exactly 238 00:18:37,519 --> 00:18:40,599 where I was going to ask next. So you've already answered the question I 239 00:18:40,640 --> 00:18:45,400 want to ask also about There's so much to talk about here. I want 240 00:18:45,400 --> 00:18:52,839 to ask about. I guess the combination or let me just have something more 241 00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:56,680 specific. Tim Scott is obviously running for president and made a lot of headlines 242 00:18:56,839 --> 00:19:03,519 with his opportunity zone Paul that was added to the Trump administration's tax bill that 243 00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:08,559 passed was that twenty seventeen now is there and that's, by the way, 244 00:19:08,599 --> 00:19:11,960 something that is and you could probably explain this but then I can, but 245 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:18,480 that's something that was business friendly allowed for sort of investment incentives. Is that 246 00:19:18,599 --> 00:19:22,799 something that you find helpful? Michael? Did you think that policy worked out 247 00:19:22,839 --> 00:19:25,759 well? Because I feel like that's pretty representative of the way a lot of 248 00:19:25,839 --> 00:19:30,200 conservatives have approached this issue. And you know, it's it's now been on 249 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:33,759 the books for you know, half a half a decade roughly. But what 250 00:19:33,839 --> 00:19:37,599 have you seen when we look at opportunity zones? Is there something to go 251 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:41,880 off of their going forward? I think it's theory. They make sense and 252 00:19:41,599 --> 00:19:45,519 like good many of the free markets years, I was much in favor of 253 00:19:47,039 --> 00:19:49,279 enterprise zones or opportunity zones when the idea first came out. I think Jack 254 00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,319 Kemp going way back, was one of the first to push on that idea, 255 00:19:53,319 --> 00:19:57,519 and of course Reagan and others. Uh. Then then they sort of 256 00:19:57,519 --> 00:20:00,319 fell out of disfavor. There was a lot of evidence to suggests that they 257 00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:03,759 didn't really create new businesses. They simply moved businesses from one part of town 258 00:20:03,799 --> 00:20:08,519 to another. There was a great deal of corruption in the awarding of opportunity 259 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:17,200 zone designation that they're well connected managed to get their business designated and others were 260 00:20:17,279 --> 00:20:19,359 left out. So they sort of fell out of favor, and the idea 261 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,720 became that they weren't really working. A couple of studies recently within the last 262 00:20:23,799 --> 00:20:27,759 year of come out now and suggested that maybe we should rethink them because there 263 00:20:27,839 --> 00:20:33,440 is evidence that they are starting new businesses and guiding businesses in the underserved areas. 264 00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,680 So I think this is open for debate right now. We really need 265 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:38,960 to look at more research on it. But I think it's something that's not 266 00:20:40,079 --> 00:20:44,200 it's a program whose hearts in the right place. Yeah, So that's actually 267 00:20:44,200 --> 00:20:45,960 where I was going to go with that was wondering. You know that I 268 00:20:47,039 --> 00:20:49,759 have heard some of the questions about chronyism when it comes to opportunity zones, 269 00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:56,720 and you know, investment incentives that can lead to this is just a problematic 270 00:20:56,759 --> 00:21:02,640 relationship between government and business. But uh, you know, in the overall 271 00:21:02,759 --> 00:21:04,240 sort of picture of them, I do feel like they're representative of the way 272 00:21:04,279 --> 00:21:08,000 a lot of people on the right have approached this. And as somebody who's 273 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,200 studied this for a very long time written books on this, I wanted to 274 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:15,160 ask Michael what you think it is. And some of this is in the 275 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,039 paper, but just kind of overall, looking at the last couple of decades 276 00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:25,599 and maybe even the very very recent past, what you think it is that 277 00:21:26,039 --> 00:21:32,839 conservatives get wrong when they approach the question of poverty from a policy perspective. 278 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:37,200 Is are there certain things that conservatives still are not understanding or that they're still 279 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:41,200 sort of clinging to in these policies, or there's certain things that they just 280 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,559 need to sort of open their minds too that they haven't in the past. 281 00:21:45,039 --> 00:21:48,400 Yeah, I think we need to recognize that poverty is not a moral failing. 282 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:55,160 I think there's still a sort of a Darwinian response social darwinners in response 283 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,400 in there that suggests that if people are purged, their own fault because they've 284 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:00,400 made a lot of bad decisions over the or their life, and in many 285 00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:04,519 cases, of course, those bad decisions have led to increase poverty or harder 286 00:22:04,559 --> 00:22:07,079 to get out of poverty. On the other hand, we don't live in 287 00:22:07,079 --> 00:22:12,640 a pure meritocracy. Things like luck do play a role. Things like race 288 00:22:12,759 --> 00:22:17,599 and where you're born and what your parents do and where your parents came from. 289 00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,880 All those sorts of things do play factors in this, and we should 290 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:26,480 so we should recognize that poverty often has many multifaceted causes and we should be 291 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:30,440 looking to them. That doesn't mean that we need to simply get people more 292 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,839 money. Too Much of our anti poverty policies have been based on the idea 293 00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,279 that somehow we're going to make poverty less miserable. If we give people enough 294 00:22:37,319 --> 00:22:40,599 money, we'll make sure that they get fed and a roof over their head 295 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:45,640 and clothing and medical care. But they're not becoming self sufficient. They're not 296 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:48,599 able to be fully actualized, to rise as far as their individual talents can 297 00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:55,839 take them. We should be focusing less on sort of the survivable level of 298 00:22:55,880 --> 00:23:00,440 poverty and more on the idea of how we can enable people to eyes out 299 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,119 of it. And I think that the sort of conservatives and liberals both don't 300 00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,200 want to talk about that. Hmm, yeah, no, that's that's a 301 00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:11,720 really interesting way to put it. If this were, you know, sort 302 00:23:11,759 --> 00:23:17,880 of politically let's say there's a Republican president and Republican controlled the Congress going forward, 303 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:22,519 but maybe, you know, like in previous times or actually this administration 304 00:23:22,559 --> 00:23:29,200 itself, there's been a need to compromise on a bipartisan level. How how 305 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,839 should conservatives pitch this to the left? And I asked that because if people 306 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:37,599 read the paper I think they see it, they'll they'll read language that you're 307 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:42,079 using in a way that is intentionally written, crafted to uh, you know, 308 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:47,480 find be persuasive and and find agreement. So, you know, and 309 00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:52,880 hypothetically, if if a conservatives work on free market based anti poverty programs with 310 00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,839 the left, what's the best way to sort of take somebody who is pro 311 00:23:56,599 --> 00:24:00,400 uh your government check based reparations and bring them to the side. Yeah, 312 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:06,079 I think we have to ask them what is the purpose of the programs they're 313 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:11,279 proposing? Why are they suggesting we do what we do? And then if 314 00:24:11,319 --> 00:24:15,400 we agree with the final outcome on that, we just then we ask is 315 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:18,920 this the best way to achieve it? I think to some degree we have 316 00:24:18,039 --> 00:24:22,559 to come to common ground in terms of what are what would be the ideal 317 00:24:22,599 --> 00:24:26,640 outcome if we could lift more people out of poverty. If we could start 318 00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:30,200 more on businesses, if we could create more jobs, would we think that 319 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,440 that would solve the problem. And I think it would go a long way 320 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:37,319 towards doing so. And then it's a matter once we reach agreement on the 321 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,720 goal, then we can sort of negotiate the details of how to get there. 322 00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,240 But I think we've got to talk in terms of common language on what 323 00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,559 it is we're trying to achieve. You know, it's so interesting because there's 324 00:24:48,559 --> 00:24:52,400 this chart that always goes viral that AI updates every once in a while. 325 00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:57,240 You've probably seen it, Michael. I think it's Mark Perry's chart. Where 326 00:24:57,279 --> 00:25:02,160 do you see the cost of certain woods? Since I think it's like about 327 00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,880 nineteen eighty that are the Some of the costs are going up, some of 328 00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,880 the costs are going down. And you see the cost of things that are 329 00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,200 going down. It's like TVs and those types of things. The things that 330 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,880 are going up, it's it's housing, it's medical care. And this really 331 00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,160 gets you know, some some people on the New Right, myself included, 332 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,359 there's you can understand why a lot of people are frustrated with this economy when 333 00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,160 you look at a trit like that, but then also, uh, you 334 00:25:26,279 --> 00:25:29,720 libertarians very rightfully point out, they'll write, you know, where the subsidies 335 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,680 are going on the graph, like they'll actually like add it to the to 336 00:25:32,799 --> 00:25:36,720 the graph itself, the words, you know, subsidies. And it's absolutely 337 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:41,000 true, things like housing and healthcare that are not helpful for people who are 338 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:44,359 trying to escape the cycle of poverty, that are trying to move up the 339 00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:49,400 socioeconomic ladder and enjoy upward mobility that probably was more accessible in earlier eras, 340 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:55,359 those are heavily subsidized. And that is not just the faults of the left, 341 00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:57,799 that is also the faults of the right. It is some of this 342 00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:04,400 the faults of Republicans for being too cozy with industry in many of these cases. 343 00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,640 Oh, absolutely, we should recognize that most of what we spend on 344 00:26:08,759 --> 00:26:14,519 fighting poverty never goes to a poor person. It goes to a large group 345 00:26:14,559 --> 00:26:19,359 of people who basically serve the poor, whether that's landlords or doctors or grocery 346 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,279 stores or whatever. But very little of it actually ends up directly in the 347 00:26:22,279 --> 00:26:26,559 hands of a poor person. You know, the big fight over food stamps 348 00:26:26,599 --> 00:26:33,440 every year is not necessarily split along Democratic Republican line to split between urban Democrats 349 00:26:33,519 --> 00:26:40,480 and farm state Republicans who favor increase food stamps spending, and people who are 350 00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:45,400 at outside of those two categories who worry about where the money's going. Yeah, 351 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:49,400 And the reason I ask that is actually because as the new right types, 352 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:56,599 they're conceiving new ways to help people at the sort of lower end of 353 00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:04,480 the scioeconomic ladder. Out of their solutions are subsidy base and that is I 354 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:08,559 feel like it's a very clear lesson that we've learned from the past that it's 355 00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,240 probably not the best way to go about because it doesn't have the intended consequences. 356 00:27:14,319 --> 00:27:18,640 And at this point we have decades of the experiment being run giving us 357 00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,640 evidence in that direction. Yeah, right wing subsidies are not likely to be 358 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:27,000 more successful than left wing subsidies, I think we can suggest. I mean, 359 00:27:27,039 --> 00:27:30,119 just look at a case for example, in terms of housing, we 360 00:27:30,519 --> 00:27:37,599 provide housing bodies vouchers based on sort of median rents in an area. That 361 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,559 means if you have a terrible housing policy, your zoning laws are so strict, 362 00:27:41,559 --> 00:27:47,000 you have other restrictions on building of environmental policies like let's say California for 363 00:27:47,039 --> 00:27:52,839 instance, that makes the housing costs extremely expensive. We increase the subsidy, 364 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:57,240 and we reward you for having that terrible policy. We really should be making 365 00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:03,359 any subsidies and tangent on their making reforms that are going to lower the cost 366 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:08,559 of housing now reforms that drive up the cost of housing. But sounds impossible 367 00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:15,880 just with this government. The thing I wanted to also end on is you 368 00:28:17,039 --> 00:28:21,480 look at previous examples. And again, one thing I like about this paper 369 00:28:21,559 --> 00:28:25,640 is you look at the way the United States has approached Native Americans. You 370 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,920 look at the way actually that Ronald Reagan approached the consequences of Japanese internment. 371 00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:34,839 There are some concrete examples in American history of the government deciding listen, something 372 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,720 is owed here, and we can do it. There's a workable solution. 373 00:28:37,799 --> 00:28:45,960 But reparations have become a right so politically charged and partisan because of the I 374 00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:51,839 think the word itself and there are competing definitions of it, but that the 375 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,240 term has just become a political lightning rod. If we tear away some of 376 00:28:56,319 --> 00:29:03,440 the chatter and try to look through the political fog, there are some a 377 00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:07,839 legitimate concerns and then be workable solutions. When you were looking back at the 378 00:29:07,839 --> 00:29:11,119 past, and you even look over Europe the years after the Holocaust that was 379 00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:18,880 approached. What lessons can we take historically from how different places have approached this 380 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,160 problem in different situations. Well, I think those places that have tried to 381 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:30,359 address specific instances of mistreatment for minorities I've been the most successful. Virginia, 382 00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,000 for example, has not gotten a lot of grief over its reparations programs, 383 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,960 but it actually has one that was just recently extended by Governor Junkin, which 384 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:44,839 dealt with the fact that in the nineteen fifties the schools were largely closed the 385 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:49,599 Great Defiance went on, and a lot of southern states and when the integration 386 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:53,279 took place, they shut down the public schools. Well, there's actually a 387 00:29:53,319 --> 00:29:59,680 fund in Virginia to compensate people who lost their education because their school was shut 388 00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:04,279 down or they couldn't get to school, and that was just extended. So 389 00:30:04,319 --> 00:30:10,839 I think that sort of discrete, targeted approaches. The police torture case in 390 00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,880 Chicago, for example, or reparations for some of the African American communities that 391 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,799 were destroyed during Jim Crowe, those type of things tend to have the most 392 00:30:19,799 --> 00:30:26,640 excessive reparations, but none of them are going to solve the long term problems 393 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,839 that we face. Yeah, I thought what you heard about the Native American 394 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,039 community in particular, where they ended up getting less than a thousand dollars apiece, 395 00:30:33,079 --> 00:30:37,839 and it was in I think what like it went to a large conglomerated 396 00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:41,799 fund, something to that effect. I found that to be pretty interesting example 397 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:47,880 of maybe even a persuasive example to the left when they're arguing for reparations. 398 00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,119 There seems to be something to learn from that example. Yeah, given the 399 00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:55,559 money to the bureaucracy doesn't necessarily rebound to the benefit of the supposed recipient. 400 00:30:56,200 --> 00:31:00,319 I think the Native Americans are a great case. We we actually had two 401 00:31:00,359 --> 00:31:06,400 different programs that were designed to provide reparations for taking Native American land, and 402 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,960 Native Americans got very little of it. Yeah, that's I think unsurprising, 403 00:31:11,039 --> 00:31:15,480 tragically unsurprising, but unsurprising. Nonetheless. Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at 404 00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,400 the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity known as free OP and the author of 405 00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:23,440 The Inclusive Economy, also the author of the paper We've been discussing, which 406 00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:27,920 you can read at freeop dot org. It's called insider reparations, expand opportunities 407 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,079 for African Americans. Michael, thanks for joining the show. My pleasure. 408 00:31:33,559 --> 00:31:37,440 You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emil Jashnski, 409 00:31:37,519 --> 00:31:40,279 culture editory here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. 410 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:51,880 Until then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for the fright her the favors 411 00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,079 a reason, then faded away.