BIG NAMES: George Will was the keynote speaker for the Ethan Allen Institute’s 30th Anniversary gala. From left to right are Republican Gov. Phil Scott, Ethan Allen Institute treasurer Anne McClaughry, journalist George Will, and Ethan Allen Institute Vice President and founder John McClaughry.
One of the best-known and widely respected journalists over the past five decades, George Will, visited Vermont on Wednesday as the headline speaker for the 30th Anniversary celebration of the Ethan Allen Institute.
A banquet hall at the Double-Tree Hotel in Burlington was filled with at least 225 attendees to celebrate the event.
Will writes frequently for The Washington Post, and provides commentaries for NBC News and MSNBC. In his speech, he noted that organizations such as EAI are important because they advance core conservative principles, such as advocating for upward mobility for the working class.
“I happen to believe that ideas in the United States increasingly do not trickle down from above, they bubble up from below, from organizations like the Institute,” Will said in his speech. “The question is asked, why is a conservative movement important in a place like Vermont?
“It’s important in a place like Vermont because it’s an endangered species here, but also because Vermont as the 14th state has a long pedigree in our society. It is the aim of institutes such as this to guarantee a dynamic, churning, fluid society full of upward mobility.”
An erosion of ethics?
Based on his decades of experience, Will offered insights into how America’s elected representatives gradually became less accountable to laws intended to restrict their powers.
“In 1965 the Great Society began in earnest the incompetent expansion of the federal government, partly because what fell was what James Q. Wilson called the ‘legitimacy barrier.’ Hitherto Congress had at least pretended to locate its authority for whatever it was doing in the enumerated power of Article 1, Section 8,” Will said.
Will said of the EAI is a force to help restrain overzealous government.
“It exists not to roll back the Great Society, but to take us back to a sense of government as a limited enterprise,” he said.
He also said politicians in Washington, D.C., have a “permanent incentive in Washington to run large deficits to give the American people a dollar’s worth of government and charge them 80 cents for it. The public likes it, and the political class likes it, and the political class is, I’m convinced, much more united by class interest than it is divided by ideology.”
America is getting old
Demography, according to Will, is a term Americans should get familiar with because both the nation and Vermont face challenges due to an aging population.
“Longevity is a wonderful thing — it is also hugely expensive,” Will said. “And how Americans cope with longevity is going to be a great test. Demography is destiny and an aging population consuming enormous quantities of medical care are a problem because today at the national level. And even at the state level we are playing by two things that were unknown in 1935 when the Social Security Act began to create the welfare state: they are protracted retirement and competent medicine.”
He explained that retirement was only for a niche population in 1935. He said that for people to retire at 65 and regularly live to 85 requires massive resources. “Our system wasn’t designed for this,” Will said.
He also noted that each day 10,000 baby boomers retire into the Medicare and Social Security systems.
Will takes a question about Vermont’s 2022 election
On the issue of the recent election, Will offered his thoughts on why states like Vermont saw even more Democrats win seats despite Republican gains in many states like Florida.
“It’s not just Vermont, it happened in Arizona, it happened probably most dramatically in Wisconsin, that’s a swing state, and Vermont is not a swing state,” Will said. The general consensus is that the issue of abortion, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, gave a lot of impetus to this [shifting in some states].”
When asked about how recent polls by Rasmussen indicate that a majority of Americans suspect fraud is a major problem in federal elections, Will was dismissive that election fraud is widespread.
“Eugene McCarthy once said that ‘anything said three times in Washington becomes a fact’ … you say something over and over again a large number of people are going to believe it.”
John McClaughry recognized
During the evening, EAI founder and Vice President John McClaughry received special recognition, including the Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Delivering the speech to honor McClaughry was Chris DeMuth, a longtime colleague.
The Ethan Allen Institute is one of 51 free-market think tanks that share their ideas via the State Policy Network.
Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.
How lucky we, in VT, are to have George Will, NEOCON, war monger, mouthpiece for the CIA/FBI etc. and the Washington post propaganda rag speaking in VT. You should all do your homework.
well there is that too…..don’t know much about George Will.
free markets are a good thing, we don’t have that in Vermont, as exampled by our medical system, school system, housing crisis and a litany of other things, like lobbyists operating under the guise of NGO’s and Non-profits controlling our state when they are political operatives. We are certainly not free in Vermont by any means, we are a leading cancel culture to boot.
There is certainly much work to be done.
Peace….
Happy thirtieth anniversary! You guys are doing a great job even if many don’t listen. It’s like the dentist reminding us to floss, but perhaps way more important. We can get false teeth and get by ok, we won’t get by so well with a false republic.
Well done, well done.