GW Young America's Foundation

On Wednesday, April 21st, The George Washington University Chapter of Young America's Foundation (GWYAF) will be hosting a lecture featuring journalist and Fox Business host John Stossel.  The event is part of Young America's Foundation's Free Enterprise Lecture series, working to introduce students to prominent entrepreneurs and free-enterprise experts at the nation’s top business schools.  The event will be held in the Elliot School of International Affairs building Room 113, which is located at 1957 E St. NW, Washington, DC 20052.  Doors will open to the public at 7:10 pm with the lecture beginning at 7:30 pm.

John Stossel's lecture will be on the topic Preserving Prosperity.  At a time when government increasingly ignores the will of the American people and presses forward with undemocratic and statist economic policy, Stossel will demonstrate the need to rebuke the regime of aggressive regulation supported by the mainstream media and Washington elite.  "In order to return to economic prosperity, our government must realize that it does more harm than good when it attempts to control the market.  I hope John Stossel's lecture will re-ignite the passion for the free market ideas that makeup the foundation of our country, on campus and in this city," said GWYAF President Travis Korson.

John Stossel joined Fox Business and Fox News in October 2009.  His show, "Stossel," airs on the Fox Business Network on Thursdays at 8 p.m.  He is the New York Times best-selling author of Give Me A Break and Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity.  Prior to Fox News, Stossel was with the ABC news magazine,"20/20".  Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Among his other awards are the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.

This lecture is open to both the GW and DC communities, however ticketed GW students will have priority seating.  We advise arriving promptly between 7:00 pm and 7:10 pm as seats will go quickly.  For press credentials, please contact Director of Press Joe Naron before April 21st.

6:15- Opening remarks from GW YAF President Travis Korson; "First year of the Obama Administration is an epic failure." He has adopted the tactics of radical "community organizer" Saul Alinsky.

6:20- Columnist Donald Lambro discusses the "stimulus" package. It hasn't stimulated anything other than government, as it hasn't  created jobs and doesn't work. The unemployment reached just over 10 % contrary to the administration's predictions. The numbers being put out by the administration in terms of "saved jobs" are very suspect.  

The Federal Reserve forecasted that unemployment would hover between 9.3 and 9.7 percent through the end of this fiscal year. Economic growth at 1.2% through the end of the year, and therefore the jobless rate will remain high. This is evidence that the Obama stimulus is an "epic failure." Rather than help the economy, the stimuli add to our already unsustainable national debt. 

The Obama health care bill would destroy small business's due to large tax increases. The most recent Heritage Foundation/WSJ "Index of Economic Freedom" has shown that the U.S. has dropped in economic freedom due to more regulation of individuals, businesses, and higher taxes resulting in "less freedom." Lambro tells us, "We have a capital starved economy." We need more economic freedom, less regulation, lower taxes, which result in higher incentives and thus more capital.

Bottom line- "Government Stimulus Programs do not work." "Cut taxes, let people keep more of their money, and this will allow the economy to grow, which is a "systemic stimulus." 

6:45- Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, best-selling author of Red Hot Lies. He is a leading critic of the environmentalist movement. 

Obama is pushing the "Green Agenda." Seeks to move energy choices from individuals to the State.  For the Green Movement, only "one side makes professional threats and assaults opponents, one side seeks to silence dissent, one side gets caught fudging data."

The Green Movement claims that "environmentalism goes hand-in-hand with traditional civil rights and social justice issues in our community."

Horner asks is "Van Jones Lying?" 

 Wants to transform society, from "suicidal gray capitalism to an eco-capitalism." Jones and NYT's Thomas Friedman are pining for enlightened totalitarianism like China as the only way to impose what's good for the masses to dumb to know it. 

Bottom Line- "Cap and Trade isn't about lowering global temperatures, it's about control." "It's an excuse to raise taxes."

7:00-National Review's Jonah Goldberg, also a LA Times columnist and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

Cites Krauthammer and Mead's arguments that Obama is a radical at home and a centrist abroad and comes from the "Jeffersonian" tradition of foreign policy.

President Obama "pulled the rug out from under our allies in Europe" in terms of the missile defense shield.  Most telling response was his reaction to the Fort Hood shooting, he stated that it was an "isolated incident" rather than acknowledging the real threat of Islamic Fundamentalism. 

Bottom Line- Obama has fundamentalist Alinskyite tactics in terms of foreign policy. This is an administration that is concerned with the age old desire of Progressivism to assume control. 

7:21-Question and Answer Session:

What can Conservative due to get the word out and have the media pick up the story of the fraudulent nature of the environmentalist movement?

Horner: The media is not going to budge. The media are activists, it will be a lagging indicator after the masses. 

Goldberg: "Obama is part of the international Davos, Tom Friedman, UN crowd." Obama doesn't believe in American Exceptionalism, which is to say, he doesn't believe that America is the greatest force for good in the world.

What motivates the Jeffersonian thinker to disengage? 

Goldberg: Obama couldn't pull out of foreign engagements because it would be impossible politically?

Are we headed towards an economic situation like the stagflation of the 70s?

Lambro: Not necessarily because prices may not go up because consumer spending is not going up, and interest rates are low. However, it remains to be seen if the Fed can gradually pull back as Bernake says to quell inflation.

 7:40: Event concluded, thank you for coming out and hearing our panel!

Sam K. Theodosopoulos is the Editor-at-Large of the GW YAF Blog.