University Times

The Nov. 15 American Experience Distinguished Lecture series, long housed in the University Honors College, for the first time was co-sponsored by Pitt’s Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy.

Dick Thornburgh, former Pennsylvania governor and former U.S. attorney general, introduced Judy Woodruff, who delivered the lecture, and joined Woodruff in the Q&A session that followed.

He led off with a question about the Bush-era tax cuts, and whether they should be extended, for how long and for which segments of society.

“These tax cuts were adopted for a limited time at a time when this country had surpluses as far as the eye could see. Therefore the source of the tax cuts was clearly identified,” Thornburgh said.

“Now, all that’s gone and we have exactly the opposite — we now have a record deficit. It strikes me that the political underpinnings of the tax cuts in the past have gone kaput, and yet nobody seems to make that connection. That may sound heretical coming from a life-long Republican, but I’m puzzled as to why that is.”

Woodruff responded: “You are in the same school, whether you want to be or not, with [former head of the Federal Reserve] Alan Greenspan, who started saying several months ago that the Bush-era tax cuts should all end, the debt crisis is so enormous and so imminently catastrophic. We simply cannot afford the $4 trillion over 10 years, but that is, as you say, a very unpopular view in the Republican Party. In an election year, there hasn’t been much courage in either party about deficits, and the Democrats now are wavering about temporarily, as least, extending the cuts for the very wealthy.”

Later, Woodruff was asked if she thought the British parliamentary system is superior to the U.S. system.

She replied, “I don’t. I think that the principle of one person, one vote that is at the root of our democracy, our system of governance, is one of the things that makes us unique and makes us so strong as a country. I still believe that our system of government is a remarkable thing that allows us to have these debates, and the ability to have these mid-course corrections makes us stronger as a country.”

Thornburgh disagreed somewhat, noting that certain features of the British system “would certainly raise the level of debate in our Congress, [where] there is very little debate. What masquerades as debate are prepared statements that are introduced into the record by members of the House and Senate. Those of us who watch the parliamentary debates in the House of Commons can see a marked difference in the kind and quality of the questions that are asked and the answers that are given.”

He continued, “I once had the privilege of debating at the Oxford Union in the U.K. and I barely got through that ordeal. I was debating the then-attorney general [for England and Wales] Patrick Mayhew, who was then-president of the Oxford Union and a very skilled debater, who just made mincemeat out of me. I couldn’t help but reflect on what a healthy situation we would have in our country if Cabinet members like myself and other members of the administration were to appear in Congress and had the opportunity to lay out our thoughts and answer questions from members of either the House or Senate. I think the quality of understanding would be greatly enhanced.

“How you do that, I don’t know. But what we do nowadays is we have hearings, where you appear before a committee of the Congress which has maybe 35 members, one or two or whom are in attendance. You hear something of interest to the chair or the ranking members of the committee and very few other people. The witnesses summarize in five minutes what’s in their 35-page position paper, and enter the rest into the record. That’s what we call a process of discussion. It’s a fraud! I think some way or other we’ve got to have a substitute for what goes on in our legislative bodies, that comes close to, but doesn’t necessarily track, the kind of debate that takes place in the House of Commons.

“I agree with Judy, I don’t think a parliamentary system as a whole would be positive for our country, but we certainly could use a higher-level quality of discourse.”

—Peter Hart