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For more than two decades the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world.
Episodes
Monday Jun 24, 2019
David Davenport on How Public Policy Became War
Monday Jun 24, 2019
Monday Jun 24, 2019
Recorded: Recorded on May 15, 2019
David Davenport, Hoover fellow and coauthor of How Public Policy Became War, analyzes how presidents have too readily declared war (on terror, drugs, poverty, you name it) and called the nation into crisis, partly to tackle the problem and partly to increase their own power.
Davenport explains how policy options have been left behind because the war metaphor reduces the constraints and expands the power of what a president can do. Davenport discusses how Franklin Roosevelt used the declaration of war to expand government and shift the balance of power in the United States in a new direction, away from Congress and the states and toward a strong executive branch. Davenport notes that Roosevelt exchanged the founders’ vision of deliberation and moderation in the federal government for war and action.
Davenport explains how, through the course of time, Congress has lost its ability to deliberate, negotiate, compromise, and draft bills, which results in giving more power to the executive branch. Davenport says that members of Congress are sent to Washington to represent us, and they need to be statesmen rather than party loyalists and step up to their proper constitutional role.
Davenport also discusses executive orders that permit the president to issue an order on his own without any congressional legislation. He talks about the number of executive orders that have been used by presidents throughout history and how they have impacted the nation.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers.
Finally, Davenport says he believes that President Trump is on the right track when he takes measures to limit the administrative state.
Monday Jun 03, 2019
Empowering Students through School Choice, with Betsy DeVos
Monday Jun 03, 2019
Monday Jun 03, 2019
Recorded on May 15, 2019.
What’s wrong with public education in the United States? Betsy DeVos, US secretary of education, analyzes the role of government in the US education system and the changes she’s making to the Department of Education. She discusses her proposal to overhaul the federal education system by rolling back government overreach from the previous administration. She argues that states and parents need to be empowered to make better informed and flexible decisions for where students attend schools. Her plan is to offer states the opportunity to enroll in an optional tax-credit program that would enable more parents to choose where their children go to school, including charter schools.
Secretary DeVos briefly touches on Title IX. She argues that, even though one sexual assault on a college campus is too many, better protections need to be put into place for the accused to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Peter Robinson and Secretary DeVos also discuss the trials of working in her current position and her dedication to serving the parents and students of the United States.