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good afternoon, everyone. i'm robert doar the president of the american enterprise institute and i welcome you here to this important conversation about the state of america of, black progress in america, with some distinguished guests. so i'm very honored to welcome to aei. i do want to make a couple observations in the beginning before we get started. so becoming president of aei made addressing the state of black america a priority for our institution. and i'm proud of the work we've done over the past few years. in 2022, we organized the old parkland conference, which brought together prominent intellectuals and public leaders to address the biggest challenges black americans. and last year, we created a new center on and social mobility,

which is dedicated to developing solutions. expand access to opportunity for all americans. and for the 60th anniversary of the march on washington, we hosted a special forum here at aei honoring, dr. king's legacy. now we some distinguished guests here, but i want speak for a moment about to a scholars who are not guests here but are part of our community. and they. and let say about them that no scholars have more to improve our work on issues than ian rowe and howard husock ann's work on these issues is not just as an ace scholar. he's an educator who's, founded and run charter schools in york city. he understands the power agency and opportunity can to transform individuals and communities. and he's been taking his messages and experience to leaders across the country as party as part of his free

initiative as a journalist, filmmaker and scholar. howard has been working on these issues for decades. howard's work powerfully chronicles how government policies have undermined urban communities. and we're lucky to both ian and howard at aei. and i wanted to be here especially to introduce today's events to emphasize how important work is. and today's event is on the state of black progress. so thank you for being here. now i like to finally conclude with one brief observation and. maybe this isn't a quote completely in tone with the point of your presentations, which i know going to be that in the united states over the last hundred years we made great progress and. all americans are doing well comparatively to the way they were in the past especially black americans who have shown great ingenuity and effort and drive and success every day. they show that.

but i want to be i want to remind all of an observation. hubert humphrey once said that the measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members. when we're discussing state of black progress, we cannot lose of the fact that by this metric, the united states is the best country in the world. no other country provides, its struggling people with more opportunities and more prosperity, which is why every year millions from around the world continue to seek to come here. but let me stop and turn over to our the main attraction, t w shannon and the rest of the group and present their success with the cure. with cure. so thank you very much. robert f kennedy. robert, thank you for that kind introduction, those brief remarks. we're so grateful to a are for opening their doors to. my name is t w shannon and i am from oklahoma. greetings from the red state.

and i. i am a former speaker of the house of the state of oklahoma and currently the vice chair for. and it is an honor for me to be to discuss this very important topic about the state of black progress. this is a ongoing journey where we are chronicling the absolute success and challenges that face a particular minority group here in america that is part of kira's mission. our founder, star parker, is with us. and i'm going to begin with some opening remarks to introduce to you, those that sit on our panel today who you will be hearing. our number one we have in row your eyes and we get those. and he is the founder of vertex partnership academies and a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute and served ten years as ceo of public prep and has held leadership positions at. teach for america. the bill and melinda gates foundation, the white house, mtv, where he earned two public service emmys with his recent

book agency, mr. seeks to inspire young people of races to build strong families and become masters of their own destiny in vitro. please give him a hand. grace-marie turner. she runs the galen institute, a policy research organization founded in 1995 to promote and inform debate free market ideas for health care reform. she's been instrumental in developing and promoting to transfer power over health over health care decisions to and patients through a more competitive patient centered health sector. grace marie testifies regularly before congress and facilitates the health policy consensus group, a forum for market oriented policy experts to analyze, develop policy recommendations. ms. grace-marie turner. mr. howard husock is senior

fellow in domestic policy studies at the american enterprise institute, where he focuses on municipal government urban housing policy, civil society and philanthropy. before joining mr. was vice president for research and at the manhattan institute. he also has been a director, case studies and public policy management at the harvard kennedy school. a member of the board of directors. the corporation for public broadcasting. a journalist and emmy winning filmmaker. and is the author of several books. mr. howard husock. and last but not least, founded the center for urban renewal and education in 1995 and serves as president and ceo. cure aims to fight poverty and restore dignity through scholars ships. supporting faith. freedom. personal responsibility. star as a presidential appointee to, the us commission on civil rights california advisory

committee and join the white house opportunity initiative advisory team in 2017 to share ideas on how best fix our nation's most distressed communities. she hosted a nationally television program cure america with star parker and the author of several books. ms. star parker. at this time, we're going to ask our honorees to a five minute introduction of themselves and maybe a brief of what their topic was and the latest tome, the state of black progress. first, we're going to begin with howard, who have 5 minutes for remarks. thank you very much. speaker shannon shannon. it's really an honor to be on a panel convened here by and cure. honored to be here with my fellow panelists. cure does great work and the state of black progress is

another example of it. and i appreciate very much being invited to contribute to that. i'm going to talk about the following topic how subsidized housing has harmed african and what we can do to get out of that problem. it goes by many names affordable housing, public housing housing choice vouchers, section eight. simply, the projects, but all housing policies from the 1930s to the present day have been and remain, in my view, especially harmful to the interests african-americans. let me explain why they have lured black households into dependency in. long term poverty rewarded parenthood, and especially led to the gnawing gap in homeownership and wealth accumulation between white and black households. our housing policies have had of these deleterious effects and a series of ways, especially by destroying demolish and clearing black neighborhoods that were filled with black owned businesses and homeowners but

were labeled as slums, replacing them with public housing projects where ownership isn't possible. and blacks are overrepresented by setting housing rules. they are such that increasing income and marriage are punished, and by defining affordable housing as subsidized rentals rather than small privately owned homes where ownership accumulate wealth. these unconsidered consequences date to the roosevelt administration. franklin national housing act of 1937. the progressive of the new deal. we're convinced that the private housing was going to fail. the majority of the population. government had to step and replace it with public. first lady eleanor roosevelt pushed especially hard for projects for african-american convinced that segregated neighborhoods that era needed to be replaced. she even came to detroit to cut the ribbon on the first public housing project named frederick douglass. she was viewed as progressive because she willing to include blacks in this alleged in the

first place. but housing progressives utterly misjudged what they were replacing. although we are often told that black neighborhoods were substandard areas owned white slumlords. census data tells a different story. in detroit, a neighborhood known as black bottom that was for its original soil, not a racial comment. it was home to no less than this got cleared away. 300 black owned businesses, a percentage, a significant percentage, one, two and three. family, homeowners thriving branch of the urban league and self-help groups and many churches including the bethel amy led by c.l. franklin, whose had a famous daughter daughter all the that built black bottom aimed toward the of struggling toward self-improvement. but by 1950 all that was left was vacant lots a highway and high which deteriorated so quickly they'd have to be demolished themselves.

the same story of community destruction and high rise replacements would play out in neighborhood african-american neighborhoods. all across the country. east harlem avenue in cleveland. desoto county. louis. bronzeville in chicago. in st louis. in 1952, low income predominantly neighborhoods later cleared public housing. there are 34% of housing was owner occupied. additional percent were small multifamily structures where the owner lived. and one other one of the floors. similar numbers found in slums quote unquote, in chicago, detroit, cleveland, owner occupants used their rental to pay the carrying costs. tenants aspire to own. they had an example of ownership right in front of them. the st louis neighborhoods i mentioned were clear to make way for two high rises, 23 stories each. the pruitt-igoe projects they won an architectural award. when they opened in 1956.

by 1971, they were literal imploded in a cloud of dust because they were judged to be in habitable. i'm at work on a new book about the history of public housing and looking particularly at some of these communities. and one of my favorite quotes comes from a columnist named paul jones who wrote for the black newspaper in pittsburgh. the pittsburgh courier. he understood that not all the housing in the neighborhood called, the hill, which august wilson made immortal in his plays that were all august wilson's plays are set. the greatest american playwright of the 20th century. he understood all the housing was great, but he had this say in the pittsburgh courier. what? the churches, the schools, the business, neighbors associations, civic groups, all these are part of the whole problem of uproot the lives of many people whose patterns of living have been labeled not desirable, not acceptable, acceptable, not endurable. people understood that at the time. nobody asked their permission to tear down their.

what could have been done instead, it was simply wrong to judge poor narrowly on the basis of their physical anti-discrimination law would have helped rather than segregated housing towers. but so too would have been help in repairing restore ing these neighborhoods rather than demolishing them. we needed to help create a new of owners building wealth. none of this would happen until the fair housing act of 1968, by which time had long since been steered into the alleged reward of public and subsidized. today, even as african americans comprise 13% of the us population, they are 48% of public and subsidized housing. but isn't that a benefit, a way to reduce poverty? no, just the opposite. consider the rules which govern public housing and its close cousin section eight voucher housing in which government pays

it pays the rent on a private apartment. first, how do you qualify as the poorer you are, the higher the priority. and that means the poorest households of single parent households almost single mothers. they go to the head of the line, we're encouraging them to form in this way today in public housing. 4% of households are parents with two parents with children, 4%. we all know the life prospects of low income, single parents and their children, and they're not positive. but even those who would seek to improve their lot are instead punished by rules subsidized tenants pay 30% of their income in rent. might sound like a good deal to. you look closely. it means when your income goes up, so does your rent. would you sign a lease like that? it's not a ticket out of poverty, but a shackle. i use that word consciously. that keeps one in it. all those affordable. this government benefit remains a temptation luring

interdependency. the promise of physical comfort distracts from the struggle that leads to accomplishment achievement. the fact that some are new and have yet to deteriorate should not distract us from their fundamental invitation to dependency. here's a figure for you. the average time residents spent in new york city public housing 23 years. there are some residents who have lived their entire in the project and passed two units on to the children. i've met them myself in brownsville. the personal growth that comes with going to a home depot, get the stuff you need, do the home repairs. they don't get to do that. they're taught to be supplicants, begging, basic services. so where does that leave us today? one thing we need to change some of these rules. you need to be able to sign a lease, a flat rent. save money. we need to say when you move in, we expect to move out in five years. we want you to have a life just like we have a time on cash welfare. we spend a lot less on cash

warfare than we spend on public housing, but there's no time limit on public housing or subsidized housing. a signal that this is a transit, a temporary leg up would be the signal as an intermediate step to disentangling the community from public housing and subsidized housing, we must signal to public officials that they need to stop doing anyone the false favor of trapping them in the gilded cage of subsidize housing. they need to ask what can be done to rebuild and restore neighborhoods. the ones that are marked by vacant lots and food deserts. history needs to be our guide rather building high rise apartments on those vacant lots. we need to make sure our local zoning laws permit the construction homes that local residents can afford. naturally, because their modest homes and small lots starter houses, maybe two or three family, maybe places you pay the mortgage by taking in lodgers.

that's what people used to do. you celebrated in new york the tenement museum. that's what they did. we make a landmark out of it, but then we ban it. some of these homes should have storefronts on the ground floors where stores and barbershops can set shop. i'm trying to paint a picture here of a real neighborhood where there are people, the streets and kids walking to school and safety where wealth is created not by checks the government, but through ownership and appreciation. we have instead. i'm arguing follow the housing path that has led to a dead end of impoverished meant especially for african-americans. we need to rethink and redo and get back, if you will, to the old time ways it worked. thank you very much much. yeah. thank you, howard. it's great honor to be here and howard, that was a great story about good intentions, unintended consequences and

think my essay similar on may 17th, 1954. the us supreme issued a landmark ruling that is considered by many civil rights activists to be the greatest judicial decision of the 20th century. in brown versus board of education. the court addressed the issue that, quote, minors of the -- race had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws or permitting segregation, according to race. end of quote. this decision, the precedent plessy versus ferguson, which in 1896 had established the separate but equal dr. and that allowed the government to legally sanction racial segregation in public schools delivering court's unanimous

opinion. chief earl warren wrote, quote, we conclude that in the field of public education. the doctor and of separate but equal has no place separate but equal educational facilities for. racial minorities is inherently unequal. violating the equal clause of the 14th amendment. end quote. the landmark decision deemed schools that were racially segregated order of the law were in fact unconscious, attentional. this meant de jure segregation, meaning schools enforced by the government to exclude educate white students only and mandatorily ban on black students because of the race. those schools could no exist and would be punished if they

violated new ruling. yet the decision also meant de facto segregation, meaning schools that had exclusively educated black students on a voluntary basis, even though laws did not require it. these schools as well could not exist because. the interpretation of the term inherently unequal carried with it devastating stereotypes of racial inferiority encapsulated in two words. in lee, unequal is a noxious and racially reductionist principle that has for decades hindered america's quest for racial progress. moreover, the lawyers argued and accepted as fact that segregation led to quote sense

of inferiority unquote among black children. this was the predominantly accepted social science at. the time the brown ruling essentially said that even all other factors were equal funding, adequate, high quality teachers, all blacks were nevertheless seen by the court as unequal, or, more precisely. intrinsically deficient, racially segregated schools, whether formed by legal mandate or community preference were now treated with the same. constitutional hostility by the court and thus suffered same fate of ultimate eradication. rather than putting an end to forced racial segregation, the

decision that all white schools adhere to four had been segregated by law would now be forced to integrate by race. typically bussing black students to, white schools. however, all black schools that had been segregated by choice were eventually forced to close, since they would now be deemed unconstitutional. even if those schools had superior academic outcomes, one such example is the is the erasure of one of the five fist movements of black excellence in education. 30 years prior to the brown decision. booker t was infuriated by the inferior conditions in which black schools were. the segregation and disenfranchisement disenfranchized bent laws known as jim crow represented a formal

codified system of, racial apartheid, that dominated the american south. but booker t washington was determined to change this and endeavored to build a new network of excellence schools that exclusively black children. he joined forces with rosenwald, then the ceo of the sears company. so imagine partnering today with the head amazon or walmart to. give you a sense over the years to construct these building these schools. rosenwald contributed. $4.4 million or what would be nearly $80 million today, an important. leigh, $4.7 million came an. $4.7 million came from local black communities in the form of cash, labor, land and materials.

washington and rosenwald launched a challenge grant that it ultimately to the unprecedented construction of more than five 5000 schools, 270 teachers homes and 163 shop buildings in 15 states. from maryland to texas the schools employed, 40,000 teachers, providing classrooms for over a third of the rural south's black school school age population, and therefore roughly a quarter of all southern black age children built 19, 17 and 1932. the rosen world schools achieved dramatic academic gains for more than 700,000 black children for more than four decade.

its rosenwald alumni include likes of maya angelou and congress and john lewis. after the brown decision, ultimately all of the rosenwald schools were shut down. they were deemed unconstitutional, inherently unequal and intrinsically, simply because of the makeup of the student body that. went to the school. as someone who has now run public charter schools in low income communities in the bronx and lower east side of manhattan for the last 15 years, educating almost exclusively black and hispanic students, that is a perception that. if it's all black, it must be bad. that is a perception we to continue to fight against. as the supreme court put it in 54, as a brown board versus of education ruling, quote, it is doubtful that any child may

reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he she is denied the opportune ity of a quality education. the court described education as the very foundation of good and proclaimed that the of a quality education is a right which must be made available to all on equal. the lessons of brown teach us that neither the presence of white students guarantee a high quality education nor the presence of all black students guarantee a substandard learning environment. let's hope that the promise of those words can be achieved regardless of the race of the students receiving that education. thank you. my glasses.

all right. oh, it is trending. hi, everybody. a pleasure. it is to be here today in this prestigious organization that has done so much over so many decades, the american enterprise institute to educate the debate on a range of issues. and it's a pleasure to be here today, howard and ian and cw, especially my good friend star who has done as much as anyone i know to really help inform the debate over how we need to get back to a different platform and helping lowest income americans to become to have of the american dream as star star herself says and her leadership really come from her own education and her own her own, her own childhood and raised on in a home home of welfare.

and her goal with the center for urban renewal education, in which she founded, how many ago star. yeah. to create politics policies that will transition america's poor to self-sufficiency. the panel of contributors to this book is marti dannenfelser. now, how many how many contributors? we have several dozen contributors to the to the book. 12. 12 contributors. and one of them is sally pipes that i have worked with a lot on health policy. she is the president of the research institute, and we both have chapters in this book, health care. mine is called dignity of private insurance. and i think you will find a theme here and that is giving people choice and having the market respond to their need for choices leads to, ownership, which accumulates, as howard

said. i argue that ownership also can accumulate good health by giving people the choice and control over their health insurance. studies have shown that too many, politicians are making sweeping promises to black americans and others with that they have solutions that often them to failing public programs, whether it's educational systems, housing or, health care. studies have shown, for example, there is little difference in outcomes between patients are on medicaid and those are uninsured. this is an insult to those who rely on public program and often have no other alternatives. all americans should be able to have the dignity, private insurance and not promise of coverage that does not lead to access to care.

public programs often pay so little that doctors hospitals have. they find it difficult to be able to take many patients on public programs. a friend of mine is a pulmonologist in florida and a good catholic man who tries to take as many patients as he can on medicaid said. he had a patient with pretty complicated lung. lung, and he spent then the course of treatment. he that he would have ordinarily been paid by private insurance hundred and $50 for that course of treatment. when he got the check back from it was for cents. he said, just no way i can keep my doors open. and i have since i have have learned that story from him, i can't tell you how many other physicians have said the same thing. so clearly access to medicaid is not access to health care. and instead of trying to

micromanage our health care system from washington, we need to transition into a new system that's more like school choice, housing choice, consumer should be able to take the money devoted in their coverage in public and private to control and direct resources to the health care arrangements of their choice. and when they can do that. the market begin to respond to their needs, not to figuring out how they can hire as many lawyers as possible to jump through all the hoops to make sure they're complying with government regulations. t.w. you mentioned my work with the health policy consensus group. i'm pleased to have many scholars at the american enterprise institute participated in those conversations about how we can use markets, competition and freedom of choice to begin to provide alternatives for people in accessing the health care that they.

the proposal would not only provide choice and access to health coverage, but it would provide care according to two serious and significant modeling that's been done to those who need assistance because of age, disability or economic conditions by dedicated resources. make sure their their coverage boosted to make sure that their their care is available. cure explains and it's in the foreword to the book and is as star is going to speak to you in a moment that misguided public and the normalization victimization record rhetoric have proven disastrous. by failing to live up to american, our nation has died and denied many black americans their chance at the american dream. being on medicaid, being the state children's health insurance program, even being on obamacare program should not

like black people into a lifetime of dependency and substandard access to the care they need. these are poorly performing government programs that politicians continue to pour more money them without really getting the key issue of how we make these programs better people. cure works closely with clergy with community building ministries and trying to bring together a diverse group of pastors policy experts and politicians to develop creative solutions for. distressed zip codes. we here and ready to continue work with cure to to give people the dignity of private health the dignity of to a quality education. the dignity of homeownership. and that will lead us star says to the freed them to flourish.

thank. sir. thank you. i'm star parker. i founded cure and i'm very appreciative to aei for allowing for us be here to partner with us on the release of our second tome, the state of black progress. the first time was published encounter a couple of years ago we received a letter from the urban to cease and desist using name because they somehow had trademarked it and wanted to continue their discussion about black america that nothing has happened or work in this country that they deem racist since the sixties. and so we thought a few years ago that we would put out an annual tome to counter of those ideas because america has worked very successfully for african-americans. and as some of the scholars have pointed, there are pockets where we still need place, some attention. but most those pockets are in

trouble because of government intervention programs that in the sixties and or in thirties. and we hope that they will be corrected through new public policies. and i'm very grateful for the scholars at aei, some of them joining us. i think one of your colleagues is in the too state of black progress, but is not with us today. and as marty pointed out, marty dannenfelser, who the vice president of government relations cure that. there are 12 scholars in this particular tome, which we're releasing now because it's black history month. but this won't be available for another month. so we would like for you all preorder and make sure that you up with the current discussions that we're that we are debating in this book on where we should go from here. it comes to public policy. the first tom talked about the and historical look into the journey of black americans in this country. the second one looks more at the policy issues, as you've heard right now about from from whether it's housing policy,

education, health care policy. and now i'm going address social security policy. a recent reuters headline read in quotes yellen rice tout economics as key to fixing america's inequality in, quote, according to president biden's domestic adviser, susan rice, in, quote, the evidence clear investing in equity, good for economic growth. i'll quote treasury secretary yellen said, end quote. i believe economic policy can be a potent tool to improve society. we can and use it to address inequality, racism, our quote. well, to the extent that in government policy can lift the medium wealth of black families cure thinks it is imperative that we push into this discussion with biden administration. according to the federal reserve's most recent survey of finances, the median wealth of white families is about $180,000 compared with black families.

at $24,000. so we. q are making the case that the word is an economic only realized through a capital system where individuals can accumulate personal wealth and that the most equitable way to bridge the wealth gap is to include low wage and poor people into phenomenon and miracle of compound interest by. personalizing social security. in this tome, the state of black progress economist stephen moore and former cure senior policy raheem williams. take deep look into our nation's social security and they discuss reform options that could potentially increase black wealth opportunities. both argue that we should be working americans. the option to opt out of social security and, divert their payroll taxes into own personal retirement accounts. a big reason for the huge gap between white and black families is the huge stock in ownership

of equities between white and black families. according to pew research center. 61% of white families have either direct, indirect ownership in stocks, only 31% of black families do. per the federal reserve, among white americans. age 35 to 54, 65% have at least one retirement account. blacks in same age group only, 44% do. while it is true that median black household income is much lower than medium white household income, meaning that blacks on average have a lot less to save and vest. this is the very reason why, given the option to opt out of social security is so vitally important. every work in american pays 12.4% of their income into social security. half is taken of their paycheck. half is taken paid by their employer. the then uses this tax revenue

recycle and make payments to those retired who themselves paid into the social security system through a payroll tax during working life. social security, the supreme court has ruled twice, is a tax. it is not an investment, and this tax is a hindrance. low income earners to accumulate equity and build legacy per the federal reserve, 29.9% of white americans say that they have benefited inheritance and or some other family gift. only 10% of black americans say that they received an inheritance or some other family gift. freedom and ownership are key to breaking the cycle of poverty and creating independence and. the opportunity to build wealth is one of the most amazing benefits of a free society, and it is capitalism that unleashes the economic potential of a people to become a safe and vibrant society. we believe that if the working were able to put their payroll tax into an ira instead of

sending it to the they wouldn't be so quick hate and burn down wall street because they would own wall street. capitalism is about building creating, working, saving only. so we need to remove all public policy barriers that force workers to send potential wealth building funds into system where they have no and they cannot transfer to their heirs. freedom is about taking responsibility for individual lives and time. the state of black progress provides discussion on various public actions that we believe help build an equitable, equal city and racial harmony in our society. thank you. well, first of all, i have got a personal here. i had a birthday on saturday, i turned 46 and i already forgot glasses. and i have have them now.

so give me. just a minute. i want to thank our all of our essayists who who contributed to the state black progress at this point. we're going to get into our q&a if you have some questions, please keep them up. but i've got a couple of prepared ones that we'll go through first. but feel free to shoot. those are your questions first. yes ma'am. in the back, you'll with the ladies first, please. i'm from the south. i can't help it. well, i am so. well, wait for the microphone, please. someone's going to bring your microphone. just a second. but while we wait for the microphone, star, start with you first. in your introduction to the state of black progress, you state that the black america the black americans have really arrived in the height of our cultural prominence, such areas as politics entertain, ernment and academics. yet many blacks are suffering. there is still a deep seated feeling among, many black americans that. we just don't have an equal opportunity succeed in such areas as employment.

education. why it that so many african-americans, in your opinion are still suffering 60 years after passage of the rights act and nearly 60 years after the enactment of president lyndon johnson's great society. why are african-americans suffering still? i two reasons in my opinion. one a government intervention the sixties creating an environment of where we concentrated poverty areas that now we considered distress. there are 8700 of them in our country out of a country of about 45,000 zip code. so we that 20% are sick. and the reason that they're sick is because they're polluted politically or leadership keeps them sick. they have built a narrative that their problems are somebody else's fault. they built a narrative that can't fix their own problems without government. and most of the programs that they've created, as you just heard from the other, are are programs that actually keep you in trapped in those particular zip codes.

many actions moving forward to try to release them from this dilemma that they that they were put into because government action of the sixties coming of the civil rights movement. but another reason the second reason is because blacks have bought this narrative that they're the exception to the rule when it comes to progress. it's one of the reasons that i care. we're pretty happy that we had to change the name because the urban league decided that they would sued us had we not because blacks have progressed 75% of the of the black in our country of african-americans our country do not live in poverty. it may be one or two checks away, but they don't live in america has been very successful. and in fact, after president trump signed into law the opportunity zone, which unleashed a lot of prosperity to all throughout the country, we saw for first time in history on black history, more african-americans over $75,000 a year in income than under $25,000 a year. so it's also the narrative that

blacks have bought to that they are the exception to the rule when they're successful. so they continue to allow the left to dialog out that does not work for black people. what know and being on on cures board almost a decade now as we know that capitalism works we talk a lot about three c's of capitalism christianity and the constitution and they work for the general america. and they will certainly work for black america. ma'am, you had a question. let's hear from you. your name, please, is joe. my question concerns and cities. excuse me just a moment. i don't know that our mike is working and we can hear her. is it working? we're okay. so we're good. okay, i said. my question concerns housing and cities, but by way of background, you can tell from my age i spent years in the civil rights movement, including a year and a half in the south working for the southern christian leadership conference, including time in two big cities, birmingham, and then. each and unintended consequences.

have you are you familiar with ted lowy's work in the sixties? is that directed toward howard? it's very good for howard although i'm happy to take it. but he was. i've heard the name, but me. okay. well, ted lloyd did a major study of his hometown of gadsden, alabama in which he pointed out that city used urban money available from the feds to tear down black slums. sometimes by riding highways through them. but there were other means. and then a batch of federal money to build projects. the university of alabama birmingham was built on it, formerly black neighborhood. when i was in birmingham, i saw it happening, but i didn't fully understand it until i took allawi's course in graduate school, there were two neon intended consequences. why haven't we looked? the deliberate decisions made by city officials in the fifties and sixties. to use federal money to tear down through urban renewal. and then build up the projects. well, great question, question.

i am trying to look at that in my new book, which is called the project a new history of public housing, which will be published in the fall by nyu press. it's not on par with the of black progress but i do try star it. and so this the poor side of town. yeah. well i appreciate you but but it's fascinating. i think the average person associates public housing with chicago new high rises hundreds of small towns across the south have public housing authorities. and it's exactly for the reasons that you put put local officials and cronies. if you will understood they could profit these streams of income both to do the the demolition and the construction appoint people to the housing authorities. and so they were lured into these unfortunate decisions by the presence of federal money.

but public housing is all small towns in the south. no, you're absolutely. so it's a lot. we'll come back to you. i want to make sure we have enough for everybody's questions. howard, that actually is a great segway into question i have for you in your essay how public housing has harmed black still does. you provided many examples of government policies frankly destroy self-reliance. black community and small businesses by imposing massive housing projects that you know frankly, too often were dismal failures. you even pointed out that there were prominent americans, eleanor roosevelt, who truly believed projects would benefit black. that was the intent. they were well-meaning, for sure. but maybe discussing this kind of hits on that question, what were those underlying flaws that that maybe we that even you know the most? well intentioned liberals bleeding heart liberals who meant well for these poor blacks. what were the underlining flaws in those assumptions that they made about the communities about

the housing and about the culture? well, there were so many. for one, housing projects don't have stores. i mean, it's a very simple thing. they're not real organic. all over new york. you can walk up broadway day in in in the bronx and suddenly there's a big gap in retail on the street. what is it? it's a public housing project. set off in a campus. and so there was a failure. understand what makes neighborhoods organic. spontaneous street life. all of that was swept away by people who had no feel for what makes good neighbor. they mistook the physical conditions. the only thing that mattered. there were some houses that were in bad shape that means, well, we got to get rid of those houses. not realizing that, well, wait a minute there were there were churches, there were, you know, in famous places, famous nightclub. the crawford grill in pittsburgh

are really famous places, immortalized again, i'll repeat august wilson's work. it's amazing. this is the most famous playwright of of the 20th century. and he immortalized the neighborhood that was torn down. that is crazy, you know. and then there were some logistical policy issues that are really important to understand as we continue to build subsidized housing. rents were originally to cover the costs of maintenance. the government was not supposed to be in the maintenance. they were going to be tenant working people that would pay rent and they would maintain building. well, when working people got the chance to move to the suburbs, they did. the left behind poor people whose income was rent were at a low level. 30% of their income. and we starved these public housing authorities of income they needed to maintain. they went downhill. and so there compounded errors

that eventually led into many these being demolished themselves. it's very interesting. maybe as a follow up, howard, before we move to education one question about education, if if we can tangibly that these were inherent failures in these policies, in your opinion, why did they why were they so pervasive? did they exist for so long? why did we continue the cycle for so many, so many? if they were ultimately failing the community? any explanation there? we're still doing it. we had a panel here, the day on the low income housing tax credit, and that's a whole new generation of quasi public housing. it has the same problem. it's all rental, no ownership, all rental ownership, because we that the housing market fails the poor as opposed to what really happens when you have your own little. one of my favorite examples, the houses. levittown, new york, the ultimate in new york or classic

postwar suburb people flocked to these houses after world war two. they were 700 square feet. wow 700 square feet. people put their money down. they built on top of those houses. they expanded. they owned them. they sold them. that's the kind of housing we need. and instead, we put people in these rental apartments and they get trapped in. and then we're still doing that. hmm. very insightful. moving education in your insightful essay in the state of black progress, you said that the supreme court's brown versus board of education really had the unfortunate effect of racing what is a beacon of black excellence education, particularly as it related to the rosenwald schools that were so successful in educating probably more than 700,000 black children over four decades. what your opinion were the lessons that we can from that tragic development and apply them to decisions about educating black children today and maybe even in the future? you know, it's a good question.

the i mean, let me make clear that brown bought versus board of education, correct? we decided to end the practice of legal segregated schools. it was the execution that the problem, because the execution went further that. it went further to say oh, if schools are separated by race for the black kids. that's inherently unequal. and as i said, intrinsically deficient. so that led to the elimination of these nearly 5000 schools. so one lesson, first of all, is not to the assumption that simply differences in race determine whether or not a school should have the right to exist. again, i run public charter in the heart of the south bronx and lower east side of manhattan. we don't have any whites, and it's not as if you we're waiting. suddenly we need for white students to show up for our schools, to suddenly now successful. so that's that's a fundamental thing. but but more importantly it's are we actually focused on the

right problem. if you look at the data from the national assessment for educational progress in often called the nation's report card in 2015. they did the analysis of reading for black students. and at that time they identified 2015 of black fourth grade students, 18% were reading at nape proficiency levels. percent of black fourth graders in 2015. four years later, if you look at that data from 2019, now, that same cohort of what we're fourth graders now, eighth graders of that group, only 15% was reading at grade level at eighth grade. fast forward to 2023. if you look at the same data, all indications are that less than 20% of black students now, seniors are reading at grade. and yet there's clamor around

race based affirmative action. the issue these students face is not the lack of race based affirmative action to get into college. it's that they're not prepared far before getting in the first place. so it's it's aligning where the issues are with where we see what are the true driving factors of whether or not a kid's going to be a successful or. and i want to just come back starr's point about wealth. you correctly said the latest data, i guess that white white families are the average is about $180,000 for white students at about 120, 24,000 for black families. the similar data in 2019, there's $160,000 gap in wealth. white families. black families. but if you just take into account a few factors like family structure and education that. $160,000 gap is completely

reversed when you take the average married black, college educated, their average wealth is about. $160,000 more than the median wealth of a white single parent family. so we have to understand what are the factors that good outcomes and, housing, good outcomes in education, good outcomes in amassing wealth. they have much more to do around. factors like family structure, married to parent households, access to high quality education in the k-12 experi ence, usually a commitment for religious faith. those are the factors that we know for these segments. the black community that are flourishing. those are the pillars that they are embracing that most explain that success. another as in if you have an education question, please raise your hand and someone will bring you the mic. in the meantime, though you mentioned those and we know that

the of any society is character. and i know in your vertex schools in the bronx, you a strong emphasis on character formation as well as educational excellence. and in your book agency i know you really seek to inspire people of all races to build strong families, as you mentioned, to masters of their own destiny. talk to us about how those resonate, where you've had a first hand opportunity to see the fruits of their implementation. how does character and what are the results you've seen as a result of that? yeah, and i think there was a question here on the front row for education. if someone wants to bring the mic while we wait. sure. well, there's no question, you know, our school, any good school should be focused on ensuring students have access to the greatest work of art. music, poetry mathematics, sciences. so that's very important that. we focus on academic rigor.

and also, within that we are telling kids about some of the biggest decisions they need to make such things related to family structure is still the case that among marry that black couples. the poverty rate is in single digits. so it's always important to reify that. but on top of all of this a virtues based in my view, the undergirding of a successful and meaning, a meaningful life at school, we are organized around the four cardinal virtues of courage, just as temperance and wisdom. and we give meaning to those virtues. and by the way, the cardinal virtues come from the latin word cardo, which means hinge. so all other standards of moral are built off of those cardinal virtues. but our eyes statement for courage is, i reject victimhood

and boldly persevere, even in times uncertainty and struggle or temperance. i lead life with self-discipline because i am responsible for my learning and behavior. these are words that our students learn in their head. and then ultimately learn it in their heart as a way to for how they their lives. so to the degree that education can have this focus on a solid, traditional liberal arts education mission, which stresses the importance of strong family formation in addition to academics, it also has a deliberate effort to the moral formation of our students. and you mentioned victimhood and this social media culture that we live in, victimhood become such a currency for exchange because the minute you proclaim you're a victim, you get an immediate culture, get immune, immediate community that surrounds. and so i'm so glad to hear that you're finding, you know,

directly in those vortex charter schools. sir, please give us your name and state your question. mr. rowe. the high performing school in denver dst is also senator around virtue and values. i've been involved in d.c. charter school movement from beginning. i've served on three charter school boards. president two of them. if we look at the test scores of and i was going to comment they're very similar to what you brought up. we're not seeing an increase scores as we might have predicted from giving parents choice the schools of improved. there's no question about that especially the traditional public schools through competition they've gotten better. but why aren't we seeing the results that we thought we would see? is this experiment really not working? no it's a good question. you know, why are we talking about public charter schools in

particular? it is true that not every public charter school is great. there are some public charter schools that are incredible and fantastic. and by the way there's some very strong traditional district schools as well. what the so what public charter schools though in my view offer to most families especially in challenging conditions. so for example, the high school that we just launched, district 12 in the bronx in 2015, of the 12 or so students that started ninth grade, four years later, only 7% graduate from high school ready for college, meaning they start in ninth grade and they drop somewhere along the way where actually do earn their high school diploma but still cannot do math nor reading without remediation. if they were to go to college and in this district and throughout new york, there's a ban on charter. so if you had an idea to actually create a compelling option for parents, you couldn't it. the only reason we were able to

do it, we had a very clever idea and even asked to start a high school. the teachers union sued us to try and shut us before opening. so it is still the case that. we're not yet seeing enough opportunity or enough choice across the country. but to your not every charter school is great. but what we should have is an accountability structure so that if there is a charter school that's not performing well, it actually will be closed. those schools i'm talking about in district 12, it's been percent. this didn't just happen year. this has been happening for. and so traditional district schools are there tolerated. this kind of underperformance is tolerated. and so in my view, what a public charter school environment at least creates is the more opportunity for choice and a system of accountability if the schools are not performing the soft bigotry of low expectations. you had a comment that i wanted to comment on this as well,

because one of the challenges we're also confronted is we're promoting options in education, educational choice. regardless of what that scenario looks and how effective charters moving into communities that need educational options the most are working through the senate or what is also happened with the expansion of the welfare state. we have a society of of irresponsibility, if you will. we have people that really believe that the country is stacked against them and a secular environment where as a nation we cannot even agree that we are absolute. then the weakest link broken down even more so. and so once the student comes to that environment, even if you're giving them the best of academic opportunity and as charter, which is far better than the public school system, if their home life is not intact, if they're getting only information that they will never make in a society that's inherently racist, then you're dealing with that element well. so i didn't want to ignore the

cultural component to why some of our charter experiences are are lagging. you will it's not just that they're not providing quality education is the lesson that teachers unions will pretend to say that it was a bad experiment in the first place. we have to do like you do a stick shift card you had to press on the gas and lift up the clutch at same time. so while we're improving educational options, we must also improve our culture as well. said in what we're really talking about. it sounds to me whether it's housing, education and certainly as move into health care is really a culture war between, philosophies and worldview. you know, you either have a secular worldview or you really have the judeo-christian worldview that has really, you know, been the foundation of america, meaning you believe that every you meet was created the image of god. and that means that every person, every child, regardless, skin color deserves a certain level of treatment, fair treatment, even a certain level

of of recognition of them as a person. but, you know, i was in the legislature from 27 to 2014 when i became speaker. and i will tell you, grace marie, that was the time when we saw obamacare enter the scene. and i and i can tell you in the reddest state in america, conservative is we were caught completely flat footed when it came to health care as really a political tool. the left mastered that in a way that we were unprepared from a messaging standpoint and and we got our clocks cleaned and we're suffering results. but in your essay, the dignity of private versus public insurance, you've argued that the political left really has a disguised agenda and see medicaid as the platform upon which to build their government health care system. what behind the desire to do this and what would be really the realm fixations if they achieve objective in full totality and some may argue they already have.

well, they're very close. about 80% of all health care is either controlled directly or indirectly by government. so we are marked poorly. an essay for the american enterprise institute. so there's not a lot left of the unfettered marketplace, something people talk about. but there's the themes that i think seeing here across the across the panel and throughout this book really are something that that conservatives have been working on for decades. i had the good fortune to work with steve forbes when he was running for president in 1996, and also. 2002. social security. he said that if if a person who started out at a minimum wage job and worked the equivalent of a minimum wage job through their whole career of is that there would have been increases from a 75%. he said that person if that

money had been invested in the in just a regular cd over the course of his life would have held million dollars in the bank when he retired and this was in 1996. so much more today. so the dignity of giving access to the money that politicians are using to buy votes. frankly, i think really, really. so. and that unfortunately, that's what happens in health care is that you find that politicians will say we've got to reduce the uninsured, not the access to care, the uninsured rate and giving people access so they they increase the number of and dramatically during covid on medicaid 90 million america guns are on medicaid. and that is a huge of our society that are on a public

program that may pay a doctor $0.06 to see a patient. so why do they go to the hospital? emergency rooms? because that may be the only place they can get. it's not coordinated care. it's sporadic. it's only sort of getting you through that crisis, not providing the continuity of care that that that you need and order to be able to actually maintain so the stories about being able to increase to medicaid prevail all over the stories of like my physician friend in florida that's page $0.06 for saying a patient and all the patients who have to sometimes spend weeks if not months trying to find a physician to see them for especially for specialty care. so the the political all dine out dynamic really working against the individual person on this on the medicaid or children's health insurance program and being able to access care. and if that person were able

have the value of the subsidy that they're eligible and be able to buy private plan they have many more choices and and we actually have an example of how that worked in the medicare prescription drug benefit plan when. it was originally created in 19 and 2003, went into effect in 2006 patients had they had the of choosing from a range of prescription drug plans that were all competing for their business because they were they had a subsidy that was following them a person they made sure that they a plan that covered the drugs that they're on with 150 drugs and two per class to make sure that there were drugs they would need in the future that they didn't know they needed were also going to be covered. that program is one of the only government programs that has come in dramatically under and it has a 97% popularity rate. people love it because it gives

them choice. it gives them dignity of access. and the marketplace is competing their business, not jump through all the hoops to, make sure they're complying with government regulations. that's what we need more of across the in all of these issues. you mean tell me that free markets work? who knew? it's amazing. you know, i think about it often, you know we have other real life examples too that aren't even as complex. i think about cosmetic medicine which is just exploded over the last few years not only has gotten more available not is there only is there more access but it's also gotten more affordable because of competition. people, you know, if if they're getting a little work done, they'll they'll call around, figure out what the pricing is. they'll they'll drive to a different state. they they certainly lasik surgery is another great the costs go down and actually safety goes up as there is someone with the health care question as you bring the mic we'll there but you might also

grace-marie turner talk to us about you know as we. one of the things i appreciate and the dignity of private versus public insurance that you talk about there is a distinction between the discussion of health care and health. sometimes there's not a link the two. government likes spend more money and say we're providing health care. but the question becomes are we getting healthier and? what are some what are some examples of you seen where free market free market ideas have actually made the society healthier vice versa? where you seen where these government run market ideas have made us healthy? is that is that clear? it let me give you an example of a of a program in new york city. i think new york university hospital decided it was having so many patients with diabetes that were coming in with with ulcers and with serious problems with their diabetes. and they said, if we could only help people before, they get

here in the emergency room, we could avoid this. we know how to measure their everyone sea levels. we know how to to be able to treat somebody advance so they they set up a program to be able to do outreach diabetic diabetic care and it was dramatically helping people to be able to and this was actually supported by private philanthropy. so it's the private part the to help people be able to get early care. there were some partnership with with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacists. if go in to see your pharmacist he can check your agency levels he can do diabetic checks and get your meds for free if you go see the pharmacist so you don't have to take off from from your doctor, your job to, go get this. so you were beginning to see enormous successes of this. they shut it down because. the hospital was losing money

because people weren't as sick and coming in. so, you know, we have to dramatically change the asset of incentives across the board because private enterprise the virtue was heart of americans to help the elite. the less fortunate is there, but it's just blocked by all these government rules or regulations are particularly payment policy things that are so adverse to the outcomes we want. it's one of the i do not like to add. please, i've seen maps what i call the diabetes belts, new york city and they are coincident with minority neighborhoods in the bronx and in brooklyn and east brooklyn. diabetes belts. you don't see it in midtown manhattan, but you it in minority neighborhoods. well said. there was a question for it was a question for grace murray please on this one over the george pendleton three questions. yes. no.

one. is it the case that if your doctor is making $0.06 on a medicaid patient? i'm done. doctors who are making $0.06 on the medicaid patients are doctors who treat poor and medicaid patients still paying a higher premium on malpractice premium because of the patients that they treat. is factoring into their business model. secondly, do you see there's a hill report that says that black medicaid patients are being brought in to hospitals for what are preventable diseases. should the hhs office of civil investigate why that might be the case that that segment is being admitted for things that arguably are preventable and. you sneaked in to question. yeah are they're all kind of related because. they're related to what he just mentioned. do you believe that a significant reduction say by of

type two diabetes could also correlate with a reduction of poverty poverty. those are good that i think you know the answers. so i've heard that about whether or not a physician's medical malpractice insurance premiums are if they actually treat patients on medicaid. i don't know that i'll i'll find out there. it's actually more to sue if you're on medicaid because you don't own the policy and you don't have contract with the governors. yeah, right. so i will i'm going to look into that. that's really interesting question. roger severino was head of the office of civil rights during the trump administration has helped the department, health and human services and really did a lot to try to use office to help shine a light on how government policies are affecting the poor and minorities. and i think that's a that's a really good question. then there's a big effort right now underway to put together the

so called 2025 agenda of things that a new administration could do to address a lot of these issues. so i'm going to mention that to him as well to see if looking into the disproportionate number of babies born in hospitals that are from minority families, that no minority mothers that have adverse health. is that the question? and what can be done about that? it was born. yeah. medicaid patients in hospitals for diseases. yeah, but different things that are. yeah. so. yeah, i'm taking that to these. yeah. i'm going to take that to these groups because those are really, really good questions to ask. we need to know answers and especially we need solutions. so thank you. i think there was another question for regarding health care on this side of the room,

please. yes, ma'am. and one up front to it's somewhere in that ballpark. well, i'm sorry about that. so. give a little context first. so i'm actually engaging in work right now? tell us who you are. gender. yes, ma'am. know sunnis kelly? i'm engaged in and work on my family. i'm doing research. intergenerational across five generations of my family. looking at working class family black family from the american south. and so my interest is around family identity, literacy and success. and so one of you all were talking about home life being in tech and that role when i think of family, i think about family systems in the same way we have a government that is a system. we have a family which is a system. the system is designed to protect yourself. and so my work living abroad in different places has informed. that's what drew me to the study.

so earlier, i believe sa was saying that doing well. there was a juxtaposition of how family, medium income of a white family is $180,000, 24,004. a black family. i think about when i hear that the reality of that i want you all to talk a bit about how notion of exception versus rules in relationship to your lessons or expertise how that plays into collective agency. and i say that because earlier those talk about the bussing these these separate and kind of siloed approaches and different pockets the country. where have you all seen that play out in your work in terms of the exception certain, this black exception to the rule or this one, those chosen ones or that's, you know, bust out or has a choice. and how that plays out when you're thinking in collective work in how this plays out around agency and avoiding

victimhood and, i think about epigenetics and how we pass on these things that start wanting to try that. and i think how you may have some thoughts on that to have some input on that question too, especially regarding bussing and other expressive that were tried throughout history of trying to build a what some call equal playing field. but on the question, income inequality, if you will, on wealth that the we were looking at that point on wealth not income. and it is true as the man has pointed out, that when you have family life intact, whether it's a black family or a white family, if it's a traditional order in that household a husband married to the mother, the children with work involved in that family life it's almost immeasurable the poverty rate difference. so it's not ethnic policy that's driving this dilemma it actually family and culture when comes to the wealth gap the that we are

trying to make through and then we explore the state of black progress is. why we have such a big gap are the saving policies in a household? what are the opportunities in a household to be able to save, invest in the country, if you will? i mean, think about index funds. this is the country this is the stock market. and we also at what is driving the disdain and in particular from black people to want to mainstream their lives and become a part of our healthcare, including accumulating wealth. where we see the difference is in income, income of black americans, generally speaking, is lower than income of the majority community. so there's not as much to save and invest as well as family structure is very different. and when you don't have legacy or pass on, as i mentioned, opening remarks that we have, if you don't have that generation that has passed on. then you can also see some of

these, which is why we're making the case, if you will, that we need another way for low income people to gain wealth, for independence. and that other way could be to put a portion of their payroll taxes into marketplace, into a personal retirement account. so that's the discussion that we should have an african-american, but as well as in our general society to say how do we break the cycle of poverty and government dependency and building wealth is one way to not only break the cycle of poverty and build wealth, but also the break down some of this racial discussions that we keep happening to have over disparity. when you own it, you take care of it and indeed you. a thought on that too. how would i make? i'm going to come to you, but i'm going to come to you with this lady's question. i promised her i was going to come back to her. so she got three. so you i would just say, i think the framing your question was interesting. this this idea, the exception to the rule because i think for

many people who look at progress in the black community, they say the rule is that, you know, america is an nation and the system rigged against you. and so any accept ins, like we say, black families married black couples, you know, have single digit poverty rates. those are exceptions that are just ignored and i think that's a very dangerous error because. they're not exceptions. those are opportunities to understand if success can be achieved in these situations. why cannot that be replicated for the much larger population. so if we understand that the vast majority of people of any race finish just their high school degree, then get a full time of any kind just as they learn the dignity and discipline of. and then if they have children, they got married first. if 97% of millennials who follow of any race follow that series

decisions avoid poverty. and the vast majority of the answer enter the middle class or beyond where those numbers are. 91% within the black community. then maybe there's something there. it's not just an exception to be ignored. it's success to be replicated for good gentleman here had, a question and i'm going to come to the lady here and then we're going to close out our remarks. we're going to close on time. i've got about 9 minutes. can i anyone on the panel can answer this question? my name is bill mower. i'm running for congress across the river in arlington virginia and why? why do the democrats seem get a pass for creating these that hold back progress in these challenged communities? who'd like to take. i'll take the first part. i think because the ostensible

benefit presented legislation makes hard to say it must be bad must be deleterious. headstart is a great example. who doesn't want to give a child a head start? right. but there have been just nine. maybe it's ten now. serious case studies about the efficacy of the head start program. it doesn't work. it doesn't work. it's kind of a babysitting program most of all. and the gains that are made tend to wash out by the third grade. i shouldn't be talking about education. so i'll stop pretty but but my point here is the phrase the framing affordable care act brilliantly framed head start brilliantly framed and so marketing has a lot to do with it. i think. and i would just add, i think a lot starts with what your worldview is and what the underlying assumption, right?

so if you look at the racial wealth gap, you say whites are earning this, have this of wealth, $160,000, more than families. well, that's due systemic discrimination. if the racial achievement gap reading where white kids 47% of white kids are reading and only 18% of black kids are reading. well, that's racial discrimination. if you at all this data and you're simoneaux causality if you're single purpose single explanation for all of these things must be structural bias based on that dimension whether race or gender. then you will come up with a completely different set of interventions that have nothing to do with what what think more conservative folks come up with which are more bottom up factors like family structure, faith, culture, access, high quality education. and that's where it often seems to be the the the divergence, in the interventions that are placed forward.

i'm sorry. i've got to move on. i want to hear from this young lady. and if we have time, this gentleman here. okay. okay. well, what you're against is this question. thank you. my name is femi. i can be. my question regarding the wealth gap, i think in the us we have few issues. needs to be addressed. one, the issue of the homelessness and mental illness is combined and that's a problem. second, we are aware that when black people are looking for finance for a mortgage, we are the last to get it. when we are trying to oppress properties. if we're low than the white people. my then to us is if our issue is the area of real estate, we will finance on it and they have the equity to develop our own community. why is it that system will come

up with something, a program where? we could put x amount of money for those who are not very privileged in the room, sit and. and secondly how do we make sure that those who get the house get them? and my suggestion if that does not get done by the government, i think the african american well-to-do community should set up a fund of their own to back mortgage system. your take perspective sound like a housing question? well, i it's good to jump in here and say i would challenge the premise that blacks are getting not getting mortgages. in fact, i think one of the problems is we have a solution to that called the community reinvestment act where you can be underqualified and get the mortgage. and that's a disservice to people get into houses and then get delinquent. their rent savings is the key. and so if there was a time and there was when when the

government denying government insured loans to black people, it's a great book called the color of law, richard rothstein, which is about that it wasn't the banks doing. it was the government encouraging them to do that. so let's not look to the government to fix. i like the idea of well-to-do black people founding a mortgage fund. a great idea, actually. i want to say in conclusion, that last comment starr and appreciate all of participating in this discussion on the state of progress. it's one of the reasons that we've come with this tome. it will be available within a month and we have that conversation again, including if we get out of here on time. i might let us come back and continue because you've brought up quite a few that are continual and communities, if you will, and all america including on homelessness. we've actually done a study on that. you may want to visit our website care policy dot org to look at our concerning this massive that we are confronted

with. but i hope you will all leave with appreciation that at least we're having these discussions. the reason that we came up with this tome is because the progressive left, we only hear one side of the discourse and we only hear then one solution. and are offered to actually alleviate the pain. and that's big government. and for the last 60 years we've tried that approach. nothing works on that. so thank you and appreciate your questions. and thank you, debbie, for letting me give another plug to our tome. you mean i had a choice? let's give our panelists a hand. a aei president robert doar notes in his open on the aei website that defines its work as promoting core values. free people, free markets, and limited government cures. mission is to apply these same core values to specifically issues of race and poverty.

when star parker found a cure 25 years ago, her was to fill the vacuum of dealing with public policy as it affects income americans. to show that, what poor americans need is to get those core american values into their daily lives. this was in great contrast to what had become the dominant thinking about the challenges of race and poverty. that dominant thinking then, which unfortunately still very much continues today, was that freedom was not the answer to our challenges of race and poverty but but what was needed was more government. in 1964, the year of the civil rights act it became law. federal spending consumed a little more than 17% of our domestic product, gdp. today, it hovers around 25%. this is a great and sad irony. it really? was that rallying cry of the civil rights movement was about freedom about bringing american freedom to communities that denied core american values and. in the words of dr. martin

luther king jr. in concluding in his famous speech in 1963, free at last. free at last. thank god almighty. are free at last. we here believe that the issue of race continues to haunt our nation today because of the failure to follow up the 1964 act, which to assure all americans equal treatment under our nation's laws. within of freedom. with the new protections afforded by the 1964 act, it should have been a fresh for individual empowerment and freedom. but political leaders, rather than ushering a new birth of freedom, guaranteed by the civil rights act, ushered in a new birth of government, instead. this served and is currently serving neither low income americans nor america at large. the real distinguished scholar which have contributed to the state of black progress, some of whom we've heard from today. they've looked at major areas of american policy, housing, health care, education and, retirement

savings. they have become tools for more government. with the alleged goal of advancing opportunity and social justice, that's we're gathered here. that's why care exists. the state of black progress will be out in a month. please get yours preordered. thank you for having us. and we look forward to stick it around, answer any questions may have as well. thank you. and i will note it is 230 on the