A magical evening, so full of interesting comments, I wish I recorded it all… Here are some:
In response to recent results on the poor performance of the U.S. educational system compared to other nations:
“For too long the Democrats have been focused on the teachers unions and the Republicans have focused on local control and property taxes, and neither party has focused on the children. At the fourth grade, our students are internationally competitive, but my 10th grade there is a huge chasm. It’s not as if their brains have been sucked out. The educational system has failed them. In other countries, they go to school longer each year and they test for performance. I was a big advocate for charter schools in 1992 when there were just a few of them in the nation. Charter schools are driving the best results in public schools today.”
“Even though I have 2 million people I am keeping alive with my AIDS drugs, if I could impact just one issue, it would be energy. If we address green energy, it will create the economy where we can address education and healthcare.” (CGI)
He was a big fan of solar thermal, mentioning it several times. So I was happy to update him on Brightsource having booked over $9B of new solar thermal installations for California in the past year.
Responding to Dean Ornish’s question about exporting our bad eating habits:
“Childhood obesity is one of the the biggest health issues in America. The hungry in America do not have enough income to eat, and the obese do not have enough income to eat well.”
“The Democratic Party should be known as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.”
So I had to ask him his opinion on a curiosity I discovered during a debate with a Republican on the eve of the 2000 election about whether W would help shrink the government. For some reason, my Republican friend dropped the thick OMB budget book on my desk with the argument that government bloat was becoming dangerously high. I was curious and built a spreadsheet with the OMB data for all U.S. Presidents since they started collecting stats. With very few exceptions, government spending (Federal, State and Local) as a percent of GDP grew during the Republican Presidencies and shrank during the Democratic Presidencies. And then W set a new record.
As someone proud of his record in balancing the budget, why do you think that is? As a political cynic, I thought it was easiest for Presidents to get laws passed that run counter to party rhetoric.
“Well, your friend will not like to hear that the main reason is that Democrat Presidents help promote economic growth. Growing the GDP is a good way to fix the ratio. And the Republican rhetoric about who spends more is misguided. They just don’t like where the Democrats spend. The Republicans like to spend too, on defense and roads.”
“While it’s true that some of the factors in the recent economic collapse were related to the reasons you usually hear such as related to the SEC, poor regulation of banks, etc, a basic factor was that even before the banking collapse, during the eight years of the Bush Administration, our country basically stopped growing jobs. We no longer had the equivalent of the IT job growth that occurred during my years in office, and no new industries, so the annual income of the average American dropped by $2,000 per year under Bush.”
In response to a dinner guest’s praise for Chelsea:
“Chelsea called me to say she has good news and bad news. What’s the good news?
‘I have been asked to be my school’s nominee to be a Rhodes Scholar.’
What’s the bad news?
‘I am not going to pursue it.’
Is it because you are afraid that you won’t get it?
‘No, I think I would.’
Is it because of who your parents are?
‘No, I think I would get it on my own.’
Well then why?
‘It’s because everything I have in my upbringing makes it unfair. The scholarship should go to someone like you, where it would make a huge difference in someone’s life.’
It was my most proud moment as a parent.”
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