Transcript
PETER ORSZAG:
This is a moment of excitement for those of us involved with the project. We launched about 16 weeks ago, promising a strikingly different vision from theories driving current economic policy and a powerful economic growth strategy. From the beginning, we pledged a platform to practical, innovative economic thinkers who could help us identify pragmatic policy options grounded in real world experience to create the conditions for continued opportunity, prosperity, and strong broad-based growth. Our approach is rooted in the idea that our economic health turns on many interrelated factors. We have already released an overarching strategy document as well as proposals on education and retirement security. Today we continue the practical work of weaving threads as diverse as international trade, taxation, and government reform into a comprehensive tapestry of broad-based growth.
One of our main topics this morning is how the nation should respond to the pressures of globalization. We are releasing a briefing paper co-authored by myself and Michael Deich, laying out a view that the best response is one that shuns both the excessively laissez-faire approach of embracing trade, but shifting all of the associated risk onto individual workers and the understandable but unachievable approach of trying to stop the world, I want to get off, somehow trying to slow down the process of international trade.
Today is not just about our papers, though. We declared early on that we also wanted to make the economic debate in this country more interesting and valuable by bringing together extraordinary people of varying backgrounds and viewpoints to debate our proposals and other topics of the day. Today we are fortunate to have a group of panelists who more than exceed those criteria.
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