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Economics Continued from page 1
“The better you ca n base your foundat ion of economics in rea l rigorous qua nt itat ive a na lysis a nd ev idence, t he better you’l l be as a policy ma ker, t he better you’l l be as a n economist, t he better you’l l be is a rea l eva luator of good polic y or bad polic y.” Ryan said he encourages look ing at a data-based ana lysis to tr y to remove confirmation bias. “I would encourage ever ybody in the field of economics to tr y and remove your confirmation bias as best you possibly can. A nd just look at data, and look at ev idence,” Ryan said. “[It w ill] rea lly help you form good decisions.” W hen the lecture moved to a Q& A format, many questions centered around the Ryan’s opinion on economic policy decisions made during the COV ID-19 pandemic. One question posed to Ryan asked what the USA can do to pull themselves out of this economic recession and if any policy should be put in place to protect against a pandemic
Voting Continued from page 1
discrimination, McElroy argued that one issue does not define how to vote correctly. “It falls on the faithful Catholics in their ow n conscience to bring Catholic social teaching in its entiret y to bear on their voting choices to us deeply and w ithout partisanship or self-interest... There is no single issue, which in Catholic teaching constitutes a ‘magic bullet’ that determines a unitar y option for faith-filled voting in 2020,” McElroy. McElroy said he believes voting requires ref lection on which candidates w ill further Catholic social teaching. “Voting for candidates ultimately involves choosing a candidate for public office, not a stance, nor a specific teaching of the Church,” he said. “And for this reason, faithful voting involves careful consideration of the specific abilit y of a particular candidate to actually advance the common core [of Catholic beliefs] and in making this assessment leadership, competence and character all come into play, particularly in the election of a president.” Speaking specifically on candidate character, McElroy noted the importance of the personal qualities of leaders, especially during the COV ID-19 pandemic. “The pandemic w ill be w renching at ever y dimension of our national life for a
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caused recession from happening in the future. Ryan said that a lthough our countr y a lready has unemploy ment benefits in place, he believes stimulus checks are the most important way to help our economy right now. “We a lready have emergency unemploy ment — we a lready have excessive emergency unemploy ment,” Ryan said. “That’s one of the sticking points of this additiona l $ 600 a week benefit. Eight ythree percent of A merican workers were ma k ing more money in unemploy ment than they were in work ing ... So you’re basica lly deny ing the economy labor by say ing to a person, ‘Don’t worr y. We’ll pay you more than if you do work.’” Ryan a lso said that in the future, Congress could create programs for a more targeted stimulus that only includes the people who truly need it. A nother question Ryan received was on how to best handle the United States’ current debt crisis. Ryan explained to the audience that better management of our hea lth care system
could fi x our grow ing budget deficit. “I believe that we can have the best hea lthcare system in the world,” Ryan said. “We can have universa l coverage, we can guarantee coverage for people w ith pre-ex isting conditions, we can have a Medicare system that a ll those seniors can rely on and use and is comprehensive and we can get our fisca l house in order to not brea k the bank and not have a debt crisis. But it’s going to ta ke an ack nowledgment that the private sector needs to be involved in the prov ision of hea lth care.” Ryan went on to explain that if principles of free market success can be applied to hea lthcare, the countr y can fi x the main problem w ith our current hea lth care system: hea lth inf lation. “I think the answer [to fi xing hea lth inf lation] is to ta ke the principles that ma ke a free market rea lly work is successful,” Ryan said. “One of the best attributes that we have in market economics is that choice and competition can improve qua lit y and bring dow n costs.”
long time to come,” he said. “The personal qualities of our president and congressional leadership w ill greatly impact whether these coming years w ill be a time of increased suffering and div ision or a time of healing and unit y.” McElroy also condemned those who deny candidates’ Catholic identit y because of their stance on specific political issues. “Being Catholic means tr ying to transform the world by the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said. “To reduce that magnificent multi-dimensional gift of God’s love to a single question of public policy is repugnant and should have no place in public discourse. In the end, it is the candidate on the ballot, not a specific issue.” W hen pondering which candidates to vote for, McElroy suggests the use of the v irtue prudence. “It is prudence that immediately guides the judgment of conscience and Catholic social teaching,” he said. “Prudence is called the charioteer of the v irtues. It keeps the v irtues all in balance and it prov ides insights of moral perspectives for the disciples confronting ethically complex problems.” As long as prudence and prayerful consideration is used in voters’ decisions, McElroy states it is legitimate for Catholics to reelect President Donald Trump or vote for former Vice President Joe Biden. “This is a decision which falls rightfully and fully to
the indiv idual and informed conscience of believers and — if exercised in this manner — w ill be a moment of grace for the voter and for our nation rebuilding our political culture,” he said. McElroy posits that voters w ill not only be responsible for voting this year but also for looking into solutions to troubling national political behav ior. “The primar y responsibilit y of the faithful citizen is to exercise their right to vote hav ing discerned in their conscience the choices presented to them in light of the gospel and the teaching of the Church,” he said. “This year, there w ill be an additional and similarly paramount responsibilit y of faithful citizens which w ill occur after the election, in the imperative to transform and rebuild our broken political culture.” To fix the countr y’s f lawed political culture, McElroy spoke about the importance of the v irtues of compassion, solidarit y, and dialogue. He noted that compassion is critical to tending to human suffering. “We must follow the example of the Good Samaritan who had no connection of faith or blood to the beaten man by the side of [the] road who risked his ow n life by ministering to him when the robbers might still have been near and who only saw human suffering and that was enough,” he said. McElroy argues that solidarit y is part of putting others before yourself in a world where ever y indiv idual is
Rega rding t he count r y’s cur rent polit ica l at mosphere, a quest ion was f ielded rega rding t he recent revea l of t he President’s ta x retur ns a nd if more shou ld be done to limit ta x loopholes for t he wea lt hy. Ryan replied that there is a copious amount of ta x loopholes in our current ta x code and that more can be done to prevent the exploitation of those loopholes. “We have too many loopholes in the ta x code,” Ryan said. “A nd the smarter way to raise revenue, w ithout doing more damage to the economy, is to plug loopholes. A nd then you can have lower ta x rates, which is better for the economy.” During the presentation, the former Spea ker said a Notre Dame professor, Dr. Jim Sullivan, gave Ryan an idea which he had then turned into law. “I came to Notre Dame for a footba ll weekend w ith my brother and attended a LEO seminar and got an idea,” Ryan said. “[We were] ta lking about how cha llenging it was to get data and ana ly tics and ana lysis on what works
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or what doesn’t work in the povert y space … Even though we spent about a trillion dollars on povert y programs on the year, only 1% of that money is spent using ev idencebased ana lysis and then Jim Sullivan, an econ[omics] professor at Notre Dame here, said ‘You guys should do a commission on how to open up a ll this government data, so that researchers like us can go through it and find out what works and what doesn’t.’” Ryan said Sullivan’s idea prompted him to w rite a bill — which has now passed into law — titled the Ev idence Act that promotes ev idence-based policy ma k ing. Rya n encourage t he bui lding of more relat ionships bet ween law ma kers a nd people w it hin our ca mpus communit y. “Inv ite more policy ma kers to campus to get to k now them and to share your thoughts, expertise and ideas w ith them,” Ryan said. “Maybe some of them w ill ta ke your ideas and ma ke them laws.” Contact Isabella Laufenberg at ilaufenb@nd.edu
GENEVIEVE COLEMAN | The Observer
Bishop Robert McElroy spoke to the College community Tuesday evening about how to vote as a Catholic in the upcoming election.
connected to one another. “It means continual w illingness to place the common good before our ow n self-interest,” he said. “It means recognizing the bonds which ties us to ever y man and woman and child in our ow n societ y and to the world as a whole.” For McElroy, dialogue is an issue that can only be fixed w ith patience and understanding of other’s perceptive. “We have parallel monologues seeking not understanding and encounter, but melody to defend our opinions, reinforce our prejudices and conv ince ourselves that we have been right,” he said. “A ll redemption of our political culture cannot begin until a genuine toleration of and thirst for dialogue enters back into the public square. The depth of our current national crisis w ill not be addressed on a substance of level, unless
we as a societ y engage more deeply, honestly and openly w ith those whom we disagree on important questions of culture, economics, partisanship and religious beliefs.” At the conclusion of his lecture, McElroy took questions from his v irtual audience. In response to a question about the complicated process of voting, McElroy had a simple solution. “One way to simplif y [voting] is when you’re sitting dow n to fill out your ballot, think of Jesus being there by your side as you go dow n the ballot,” he said. “Just think to him being there, watching you as you do it and think to yourself, ‘In the end, what I really think Jesus would want me to do in this case? ’ and if you do that authentically, that’s a great way to vote.” Contact Genevieve Coleman at gcoleman01@saintmarys.edu
