Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future, we’ll look at the busy congressional agenda. between now and the end of the campaign-shortened legislative session. Among the agenda items we'll discuss are: Emergency supplemental aid for Ukraine, additional COVID funding, student loan cancellation, inflation concerns and immigration reform. Plus, we'll ask whether there will ever be a Gen X president. Our guest is Jon Lieber, a former top congressional strategist and now managing director of Eurasia Group's United States Practice. Concord Coalition Policy Director Tori Gorman joins the conversation.

This week on Facing the Future we’ll look at the state of the economy, including  the first quarter GDP report, inflation expectations, the prospects for a "soft landing" as the Fed begins to tighten monetary policy, and whether there are any glimmers of hope for immigration reform. Our guest is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. Concord Coalition policy director Tori Gorman and chief economist Steve Robinson joined the conversation.

This week on Facing the Future, we hear the voices of college students from all over the country who recently competed in the finals of the national fiscal challenge in Washington DC. We also speak with one of the judges for the competition, Diane Lim, the Democratic policy director for the Congressional Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth. 

This week on Facing the Future we look at the potential budgetary and economic effects of climate change. Hint: They aren't good. Our guest is Brian Keane, President of SmartPower, a nonprofit organization focused on renewable energy. Then we discuss whether the Fed can slow inflation without throwing the economy into recession. Tori Gorman and Steve Robinson weigh in.

This week on Facing the Future we look at the latest inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that prices are still growing at the fastest pace since the early 80s. Then we'll hear from a group of college students who recently took part in a nationwide Fiscal Challenge competition where they had to devise and defend their own plans for putting (or keeping) the U.S. on a sustainable fiscal path.

This week on Facing the Future, with millions of new refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine, we revisit immigration - vital to sustained American economic growth over the next 50 years. Our guests are Ali Noorani, President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, and George Bruno, an immigration lawyer and former US Ambassador to Belize

This week on Facing the Future we take a close look at President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget. Concord's Policy Director Tori Gorman and Chief Economist Steve Robinson join me to assess how the budget measures up against a set of criteria we put out in advance of the budget's release. There's some good news and some bad news.

This week, Facing the Future goes "On the Road" to Ball State University in Indiana to hear from students and community members on how they might propose to put the federal budget on a more sustainable path. We also hear from two national experts: Ben Ritz of the Progressive Policy Institute and Josh Gordon of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

This week on Facing the Future, excerpts from a recent panel discussion focusing on the national debt outlook and changing views on the role of government two years into the pandemic. Panelists are Brian Reidl of the Manhattan Institute and Wendy Edelberg of the Brookings Institution, moderated by award winning journalist and author Laura Knoy.

This week on Facing the Future we look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its implications for the U.S. and world economies. Our guest is former Congressman  Richard Swett (D-NH), who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark (a NATO member) from 1998 to 2001. Then we turn our attention back to Washington where Congress is still trying to wrap-up a funding deal for this year, including additional COVID relief and aid for Ukraine.