This Friday, Hoover announces three national contests in honor of America’s 250th anniversary; Abbas Milani joins the GoodFellows to unpack the latest news about Iran; Philip Zelikow uses the history of World War I to clarify the role of policymakers in avoiding catastrophic great-power wars; and Margaret Raymond speaks with Bill Whalen about her research into the “unheard” stakeholders in the US education system—and how their insights could help to improve America’s educational outcomes.
USA @ 250
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Hoover Institution is launching a series of national competitions inviting multiple generations to engage with and reinterpret the ideas that shaped the nation. Through spoken-word poetry, video content creation, and essay writing, students and the public are challenged to use this moment in the nation’s history to bring America’s founding ideals into the present and to imagine what comes next for the country. The first contest, The American Experiment in Your Words, a spoken-word competition, opens today. High school and college students are invited to submit original spoken-word performances of three minutes or less that explore the meaning and future of the American experiment. Submissions close June 1. Winners in each division will receive $2,500 plus a trip to the Hoover Institution, with travel and lodging expenses covered. Learn more here.
War in Iran
On the latest episode of GoodFellows, research fellow and Iran scholar Abbas Milani joins Senior Fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, and H.R. McMaster to discuss life within that beleaguered theocracy. The GoodFellows and Milani delve into essential questions of the moment: Who’s in charge in Iran? Will added economic pressure—a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and a halt on Iran’s oil trade—bring about an end to the regime? After concluding their discussion with Milani, the panelists share their thoughts on Hungary’s election, the likely “winners and losers” of the Iran war, America’s woeful tax code, and the Artemis II space mission. Watch or listen here.
Revitalizing History
In a new essay for the Times Literary Supplement, Senior Fellow Philip Zelikow reviews The Coming Storm by Odd Arne Westad. “Reasoning from history is the most common form of reasoning in public affairs,” the historian and former diplomat Zelikow writes. “Yet the history is often potted and the analogies frequently mislead.” Zelikow goes on to critique Westad’s application of the history leading up to World War I to the present geopolitical situation vis-à-vis the United States and China, arguing that the author relies on several misleading historical analogies. Examining the impact of the Iran war on the US-China relationship, Zelikow says it’s “possible” that the conflict “displays [the Trump administration’s] strength and aids deterrence.” But he cautions that it’s “also possible that the war adds to the rising momentum of global violence as it strains America’s capabilities and old bonds of alliance.” Amid “the potential for a coming storm,” Zelikow concludes that the job for policymakers today “is to develop concrete policies to minimize or mitigate the risk to the region and to the world.” Read more here.
Education
While America’s education system doesn’t lack for stakeholders (parents, educators, political and policy leaders, and business and community activists), there’s a question as to whether all concerns are being heard and respected. On the latest episode of Matters of Policy & Politics, Distinguished Research Fellow Margaret “Macke” Raymond, director of Hoover’s program on K–12 Education, discusses the findings of Hoover’s Unheard Voices report. Raymond and her research team engaged with nine communities across America, each one beset with underperforming schools. As she explains, they discovered parents and community leaders want to become more involved in the lives of their schools but suffer from a lack of information and context. What’s more, they found that in some cases, educators are reluctant to listen to outside voices. Listen to this conversation for an in-depth analysis of barriers to a better education system, and for Raymond’s insights on how to overcome those challenges. Watch or listen here.
Economics
Even at low rates, proposed “billionaire wealth taxes” would function as massive tax increases on capital income, raising effective rates so high that the returns an investor needs to break even exceed most commonly achievable market returns, according to new research and a wealth tax calculator from a Hoover scholar. Research Fellow Benjamin Jaros and William Dougan of Clemson University have developed a framework that translates any proposed wealth tax rate into its equivalent tax on capital income, given the prevailing risk-free rate of return. Using the 5 percent wealth tax rate proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna, Jaros and Dougan find that such a tax is equivalent to a 52.5 percent tax on capital income. Under the Sanders-Khanna proposal, billionaires must earn at least 21.1 percent returns on their investments each year just to break even, about four times the risk-free rate and nearly triple the average total market return on invested capital. Read more here.
Related Commentary