So why might intelligent, young scholars like you come to love our dysfunctional government? You've heard repeatedly from officials at this very podium tell you that the system is broken. I suspect if you were a student in Moscow or a student in Beijing you might, in a candid moment, hear the same thing. Well, my response is to fall back on that wonderful blend of Albert Einstein and Rahm Emanuel. In crisis there is opportunity. Things look darkest before the dawn. Here's an opportunity to act. And when citizens engage, our government reacts. Democracy contains the seeds of its own renewal. Why? Because it's relatively open and relatively accessible. Because it rewards policy entrepreneurs. Because it empowers you to test your ideas and improve the lives of fellow citizens, if you'll take the time to understand how process shapes outcomes and how politics moves in cycles. Now, the efficacy of big government solutions is justifiably questioned, both here in the United States and overseas and I understand why. Your formative years have been clouded by an unceasing global war with shadowy groups employing terror tactics. By massive policy-making failures, let us acknowledge them. By big Wall Street bailouts and regulatory failures. By over budget federal spending that has had little impact on our crumbling public infrastructure. And by repeated failures to address the broad challenges to our shared international environment. Yet, my theory is, our most troublesome legacy to you guys is this. It's a debilitating suspicion of virtually all our national institutions. As we've discussed in this classroom, for those of you reading along at home, Top Ten Theme number 9. A clear definition of the national interest and an awareness of special interests are essential for successful policy advocacy. And here policy history, surprise, policy history can inform us. The suspicion of government, suspicion of all things Washington grew during the Lyndon Johnson's presidency. We called it the credibility gap. It got worse under the criminality of Richard Nixon's White House. I believe it accelerated, tragically, during the misguided war of choice and the prolonged occupation of Iraq. Now, as we speak today, we face broad public distrust again. Public distrust over the alleged federal overreach in NSA data tracking activities. Add to that, growing concerns about generational equity. As we Baby Boomers retire with a host of benefit entitlements we'll have to have you finance for us. Thank you very much. Similar issues of generational equity now challenge aging populations in Europe, in China, and in Japan. It's not unique to the United States. Now, it's hard to convey to you guys, but we Baby Boomers who came of age during those wonder years felt the possibilities of an America with no limits. We had unlimited belief in our future. We believed we could fly to the moon and back and we did. So it grieves me, it pains me when I talk to my adult children, when I talk to you guys during office hours. And when I read the polls, to hear that your generation is the first in a century to think that you're not going to be better off than your parents. Even when many of our heroes, and for me it was the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King. Even when many of our heroes were gunned down. Even when the Vietnam quagmire loomed for me and my four brothers when we were facing the draft. My generation felt an invigorating sense of community power to promote progress. We felt we could do anything. You should too. You can feel similarly empowered and optimistic. You're gifted, curious, engaged citizens. I see it everyday in office hours, I see it on the lawn, I see it in conversations in the hallway. You're possessed with strong values and compassion. You're very, very well equipped to conquer these policy challenges, but only if you dare. So don't be so suspicious of idealists, please. Don't be so suspicious of idealism. As David Brooks wrote in a brilliant New York Times column last spring, pervasive distrust of the link between political action and policy result can promote slackerism and self-absorption. And this is also as true here in Virginia as it is in Beijing or Moscow, where suspicion of entrenched power, I'm quite certain, might encourage pursuit of purely private agendas. The kind of why bother, I can't make a difference, I'm going to focus on my own agenda, thinking that harms us. You risk becoming resigned to the status quo, to the evils we know. In the hyper-partisan politically polarized times here in the United States, you're going to have to try new and innovative approaches. Even some, with all due respect to my colleagues at the Batten School, that have not been exhaustively tested with big data and data sets, and quantitative policy analysis.
