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Jon Hartley and Phil Gramm discuss Graham’s career as an academic economist at Texas A&M, his service in the US House of Representatives and in the US Senate, and his work on the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and Gramm-Leach-Bliley legislation. Graham also talks about his recent books on the role that economic freedom plays in economic growth, as well as various fallacies surrounding the rise of inequality in the US.
Recorded on April 28, 2026.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
An economist by training, Senator Phil Gramm has had a long and distinguished career in public service, academia and the private sector. He served in the US Congress representing Texas for more than two decades, first as the 6th congressional district representative to the US House of Representatives (1979-1985), then later as senator (1985-2002). His legislative record includes landmark bills like the Gramm-Latta Budget, which reduced federal spending, rebuilt national defense, and mandated the Reagan tax cut, and the Gramm-Rudman Act, which placed the first binding constraints on federal spending. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Gramm steered legislation modernizing banking, insurance, and securities laws. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act amended the 70-year-old Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks, security companies, and insurance companies to affiliate through a financial services holding company. Senator Gramm taught economics at Texas A&M University for 12 years (1967-1979) before becoming a member of Congress. He has published numerous articles and books on subjects ranging from private property, monetary theory, and policy to the economics of mineral extraction. He is currently a senior partner at Policy Metrics, as well as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he is studying to find solutions for improving the US economy through reform of the tax code and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the UT-Austin Civitas Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon also is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami.
Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.
Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.
For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/
