I.O.U.S.A - Addison Wiggin [52]
Q: How would you characterize the U.S. economy in comparison to other economies around the world? Where do we fi t into that?
Alice Rivlin: Well, the U.S. economy is just a word for everything that everybody does, that is production or sale or getting paid for what you do. It adds up to everybody ’ s spending, whether you are an individual or a corporation, or a nonprofi t institution.
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108 The
Interviews
The U.S. economy is the largest and most productive in the world.
It has really been quite amazing. We have a higher standard of living than most other countries. And we have continued over a long period to be very productive.
Q: Are you hopeful that the economy is going to stay strong, and it is going to provide benefi ts to people who live here? Or are you concerned about the challenges that lie ahead? How do you characterize them?
Alice Rivlin: I am an optimist about the American economy.
We have done very well for a long time. We have some threats at the moment. One of them, I think, is that we have made more promises to older people than we can afford to pay for, unless we change the rules. I think we will change the rules, or we will raise taxes, or we will do some of each. I am also worried about the distribution of income, about the fact that some people make a lot of money, and some people are struggling just to make ends meet. And those differences have widened over the past few years.
I think that is not good for us. We should make it easier for people at the bottom of the income distribution to make a good living and to have jobs where they earn a living wage. But in general, this is a very strong economy.
Q: Why should someone who lives in this country, and has no interaction with the government or in, say, Wall Street, know about economics and the federal government and how they work? Why should they care about it?
Alice Rivlin: Everyone should care about what their government is doing because it affects their lives very directly. If taxes go up or if spending is cut for something that you really care about, like roads and bridges, or education or health care, then you are going to feel it right away. It is not remote. People may think somehow decisions are made by other people far away, but in a democracy that is not really true. It is your representatives in Congress or in the Senate that are infl uencing what happens to the U.S. economy and what happens to the federal budget. So it is pretty important for people to pay attention to it.
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Q: And as for the economy, do you think it as complicated as people think it is, or no? Is it an approachable topic for most?
Alice Rivlin: I do not think the economy is nearly as diffi cult to understand as many people seem to think. I think it is a little bit like math phobia. People say, oh, well, you know, I never was good at math. But the economy does not involve much math.
People know about taxes. They know about spending. They know about unemployment. If it hits them, it is a disaster. So those are things that people can fi gure out.
Q: What does an institution like Brookings do?
Alice Rivlin: The Brookings Institution does public policy research. That is, we write books and articles and other kinds of publications, and we talk on the air about public policy problems, like taxes and international trade, and budget defi cits, and the war in Iraq, all kinds of public policy issues. We are a nonpartisan organization. We try to do the best job that we can to do fair and impartial research. That does not mean people do not have opinions. Of course they have opinions. But we are dedicated to doing fair and impartial research.
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William Bonner
William Bonner founded Agora Inc., a fi nancial research and publishing group, in 1979 in Baltimore, Maryland. Bill is the author