Ripon Forum - June 2023

The Role of Congress in Regulating Artificial Intelligence

by JAY OBERNOLTE

Plus: Mac Thornberry & Ylli Bajraktari examine how AI is reshaping the battlefield

And: Rick Hess assesses the impact of AI on American classrooms

MEMO TO WASHINGTON: AI Needs Your Full Attention ... Now!

by Dr. Peter Stone

“IT IS THROUGH TRIAL BY FIRE THAT THE MOST RADIANT OF GOLD IS MADE”

Salazar shares her advice for young people

María Elvira

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Cover Story

4 The Role of Congress in Regulating Artificial Intelligence

By Jay Obernolte

As policymakers begin to tackle the issue of AI, it is vital that we maintain the agility of our technology and strike a careful balance between protecting consumers and protecting innovation.

7 How AI is Reshaping the Battlefield

By Mac Thornberry & Ylli Bajraktari

Data, advanced algorithms, computing power – these are the weapons that will determine the fight for information. And it’s a fight the United States must win.

9 AI and the Future of Schooling

By Frederick M. Hess

Advances in artificial intelligence create new opportunities to tackle persistent challenges in schooling. But we must be clear-eyed about the technology and how it is used.

11 How AI is Reshaping Transportation

By Jonathan L. Gifford

AI has emerged as a transformative force in transportation, one that will affect both how we use transportation – the demand side – and how we supply transportation facilities and services.

13 How AI can Reshape Lawmaking in the U.S. Congress

By ChatGPT

The integration of AI into the lawmaking process has the potential to significantly reshape the way laws are created and implemented -- just ask ChatGPT.

Editor Lou Zickar

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Jim Murtha

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Cover Story (cont’d)

14 Memo to Washington: AI Needs

Your Full Attention ... Now!

By Peter Stone

The development and deployment of one specific type of AI technology large generative models such as GPT4 is outpacing our ability to understand their strengths and limitations.

Politics & Perspective

16 Bring Back

Conference Committees

By Mark Strand

Like so many aspects of the legislative process, the Conference Committee has fallen victim to the dramatic shift of congressional power to party leadership.

Debate: Should America Continue to Accept

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18 Yes, Our Founders wanted America to be a Refuge, and It Remains a Part of Our Identity Today

By David Haines

19 No, America’s Refugee Policy is Unrecognizable, and It is Time to Course Correct

By Lora Ries

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In this edition

With each new week seeming to bring another new advancement in artificial intelligence, the latest edition of The Ripon Forum examines the role of Congress in regulating AI and how our lives and our world may be reshaped and impacted in the years ahead.

Leading the Forum’s coverage of this issue is Jay Obernolte. The U.S. Representative from California’s 23rd Congressional District, Obernolte is an entrepreneur and computer scientist who has spent the past 30 years running his own video game development company. He is also the only member of Congress with a graduate degree in AI.

“As Congress begins to tackle the issue of artificial intelligence,” he writes in the lead essay for this edition, “it is vital that we maintain the agility of our technology and strike a careful balance between protecting consumers and protecting innovation … In Europe, legislators in the EU have moved too aggressively, abdicating their decision making on AI to a bureaucracy and passing regulations on data privacy that stifle innovation by focusing on mechanisms instead of on outcomes. Some countries in Europe have gone even further, arbitrarily halting the development of artificial intelligence within their borders and allowing the rest of the world to progress while they lag behind. This tactic would be particularly harmful in the United States, where China is already seeking to use artificial intelligence to manipulate public opinion, attack our cyber defenses, and profile American citizens.”

According to Mac Thornberry and Ylli Bajraktari, China’s aggressive pursuit of acquiring AI is one reason why the U.S. cannot sit back and take a more passive approach. Thornberry is the former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, while Bajraktari is the President & CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project. In an essay entitled, “How AI is Reshaping the Battlefield,” the pair write that: “Data, advanced algorithms, computing power – these are the weapons that will determine the fight for information. And it’s a fight the U.S. must win ... The Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with information in modern warfare and has unabashedly touted the military advantages of AI which it sees as central to moving from today’s ‘informationized’ ways of warfighting to future ‘intelligentized’ warfare.” Unfortunately, they continue: “The Department of Defense has been slow to integrate AI. This will leave the Joint Force disadvantaged in any future information contest against a Chinese military relentlessly pursuing intelligentized warfare.”

In another essay for this edition, Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute examines how artificial intelligence will impact American lives closer to home — more specifically, in the classroom. “The plain truth,” Hess writes, “is that — whether the subject is division, Dante, or driving — AI makes it easy for learners to show proficiency without ever mastering essential knowledge or skills.” The result, he continues, is that teachers will have to change their approach to instruction. “Teachers will need to bring writing back into the classroom, where they can observe the writing process and engage with students. They’ll need to check in with students at each stage of the writing process, as they develop a thesis, frame arguments, identify sources, and so forth. There will be a place for more oral presentations. And all this is good!”

In other pieces examining the impact of artificial intelligence on our lives, Jonathan Gifford, the director of the Center for Transportation Public-Private Partnership Policy, examines how AI is reshaping transportation in the United States, while ChatGPT — the artificial intelligence Chatbot that revolutionized the field when it was released late last year — provides its own assessment of how AI will reshape lawmaking in Congress. And in a “Memo to Washington,” Dr. Peter Stone of the University of Texas — who signed a letter calling for a six month halt on AI-related research — urges lawmakers to give their full attention to the issue given the accelerating rate of technological advancements.

Also featured in this latest edition of the Forum is an essay by veteran legislative expert Mark Strand, who recently stepped down as President of the Congressional Institute and writes about the importance of House-Senate conference committees and why their role in the legislative process should be restored. With illegal immigrants continuing to stream across America’s southern border, David Haines of George Mason University and Lora Ries of the Heritage Foundation square off in a debate over immigration policy and whether America should continue to accept asylum seekers. And in our latest Ripon Profile, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar discusses, among other things, how her career in journalism has shaped her service on Capitol Hill.

As always, we hope you enjoy this latest edition of The Ripon Forum, and encourage you to contact us with any questions or comments you may have.

Lou Zickar, Editor of The Ripon Forum louzickar@riponsociety.org

The Role of Congress in Regulating Artificial Intelligence

by JAY OBERNOLTE

Over the next several years, Congress will grapple with critical questions concerning the regulation of new and emerging technologies. While technology’s impact on our country has brought about monumental changes, it has previously done so in a largely unregulated environment. Now, as America reflects on the technological revolution that brought us the iPhone and the internet, and looks forward towards a second revolution in artificial intelligence, it is an opportune time to address some of the changes and challenges

of the past 20 years and set our sights on putting our nation and our society on a path towards a successful transition into the next era of humanity’s coexistence with technology.

I am proud to be a part of America’s thriving technology community myself. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and a Master’s in artificial intelligence at UCLA before using my programming skills to start a video game

development company, which I’ve managed for the last 30 years. Today, I am one of only four computer scientists in the U.S. House of Representatives.

When I was doing research in AI 30 years ago, the discipline was at the beginning of a renaissance. The field of artificial intelligence had its genesis in 1950 through Alan Turing’s paper on computing machinery and intelligence, followed by the introduction five years later of Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon’s Logic Theorist program. By the 1980s, the growing accessibility of computers, increased computing power, and the expansion of the algorithmic toolkit enabled AI development to reignite. Neural networks and machine learning algorithms were developed that allow computers to learn through experience in the same way that human brains do. The introduction of expert systems was the “low-tech” precursor to AI chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Today, many of the principals of AI that were employed during my graduate school days remain key building blocks of ongoing research and development. However, the significant increases in available computing power since then have revolutionized the capabilities of machine learning algorithms and the tasks they can accomplish.

Part of the brilliance of America’s technology industry over these many years is that it has been allowed to flourish in a largely unregulated environment. This has given our nation the flexibility to remain agile and on the cutting edge of modern innovation, without the interference of burdensome regulations that could have at many stages shut the industry down for good. It has catalyzed our leadership in the field over countries in Europe, Great Britain, and most of Asia.

Today, however, as we stand on what seems to be a precipice where AI has reached a stage of development that could radically alter human society, calls for regulation in the United States and across the globe have reached a fever pitch from both government and

academia. As Congress begins to tackle the issue of artificial intelligence, it is vital that we maintain the agility of our technology and strike a careful balance between protecting consumers and protecting innovation.

It is important to remember that AI is fundamentally still just software, even at its advanced stage of development. Despite how remarkably human it may seem, these systems can still only do what we tell them to do, and they shouldn’t be viewed any differently than the apps we have on our phones and the programs we run on our computers. ChatGPT is an amazing example of what AI can do. It can be an effective educational tool, a skilled coding assistant, and an efficient resource to complete many tasks. However, the technology is still far from perfected, and there is much we are still learning every day about how well it really works and how it might be misused.

While AI poses serious risks, it is not the scary monster of science fiction movies. Rather than an army of robots with red laser eyes rising up to take over the world, the real risks of AI include hazards such as deep fakes, unlimited government surveillance, and manipulation of public opinion by malign foreign actors. Also, like any technological revolution, AI will undoubtedly cause major societal and economic shifts in the way we work and the way we spend our free time on a scale we haven’t experienced since the industrial revolution.

We are also likely to experience significant social upheaval as a result of AI. When the industrial revolution created automated textile mills, highquality cloth became widely available to the middleclass for the first time in human history. It changed the way the average household operated, but it also put the mill workers previously employed to make fabric by hand out of work. The Luddites in England burned those textile mills in protest of the new technology, but viewed through the lens of history, it is indisputable that workers, families and communities across the

As Congress begins to tackle the issue of artificial intelligence, it is vital that we maintain the agility of our technology and strike a careful balance between protecting consumers and protecting innovation.

world greatly benefited from the new technology, despite the disruption it engendered.

The advent of artificial intelligence tools that can be used in many workplace settings will likely catalyze a similar shift in our workforce and in our society. However, this time entry- and mid-level white collar jobs will be the likely subject of technological displacement. People will write wills using online AI software instead of by visiting a lawyer’s office, and healthcare outcomes will be improved by automated AI screenings that can detect harmful tumors earlier and with greater accuracy than the human eye. Although the internet may have revolutionized our access to information, AI could someday magnify that access tenfold.

These are all possibilities that any governing body seeking to regulate AI must take into careful consideration. In Europe, legislators in the EU have moved too aggressively, abdicating their decision making on AI to a bureaucracy and passing regulations on data privacy that stifle innovation by focusing on mechanisms instead of on outcomes. Some countries in Europe have gone even further, arbitrarily halting the development of artificial intelligence within their borders and allowing the rest of the world to progress while they lag behind. This tactic would be particularly harmful in the United States, where China is already seeking to use artificial intelligence to manipulate public opinion, attack our cyber defenses, and profile American citizens.

autonomy over data, an Orwellian surveillance state, government control of technology, and the antidemocratization of knowledge.

Over the next several months, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will continue its development of major new federal data privacy legislation that will take an important first step towards mitigating many of the near-term risk factors posed by artificial intelligence. These policies will enact critically important protections that, if implemented correctly, will shield the personal digital data that could fuel malicious AI by putting reasonable guardrails around its use by industry, and equally importantly, by government.

In Europe, legislators in the EU have moved too aggressively, abdicating their decision making on AI to a bureaucracy and passing regulations on data privacy that stifle innovation.

Congress will play a critical role in addressing the vast and sweeping changes artificial intelligence will bring to the world in which we live. We must strike an appropriate balance between safeguarding against the dangers of AI while simultaneously enabling its ethical development and deployment. If we accomplish this, the potential benefits of AI promise nothing less than an explosion of human productivity and the realization of longheld human goals such as universal education and the eradication of poverty. Guarding against the risks while still enabling human society to reap the benefits of AI will be the work of our generation. RF

The United States must instill the values of freedom and entrepreneurship in the use of artificial intelligence as this technology becomes commonplace globally, instead of allowing other countries to propagate their alternative values of limited personal

Jay Obernolte represents the 23rd District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. An entrepreneur and computer scientist who has spent the past 30 years running his own video game development company, he is the only member of Congress with a graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence.

“Ideas that matter, since 1965.“

How AI is Reshaping the Battlefield

by MAC THORNBERRY & YLLI BAJRAKTARI

The world is in the midst of a technological revolution in warfighting driven by the widespread deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). This revolution’s relentless advance is demonstrated daily in Ukraine where we see the power of a tech-savvy, creative, and adaptable population develop and speed a range of new technologies to the battlefield to turn back a brutal Russian military. Ukraine’s community of engineers has formed a software army able to tap into multiple data sources and digital platforms, ranging from commercial satellite imagery to smartphone apps used to track Russian movements, that are then combined with cutting-edge AI. Spurred by the existential threat posed by Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian military is the first to operationalize algorithmic warfare at scale.

Data, advanced algorithms, computing power – these are the weapons that will determine the fight for information. And it’s a fight the U.S. must win. AI enables the ability to sense and see the battlefield, to rapidly respond to adversary moves, to get ahead of the adversary’s decision cycle, and enable faster decision-making and targeting. Ukraine has integrated AI into kill chains to spot hidden and camouflaged Russian vehicles and greatly accelerate the targeting

cycle, which is critical when trying to strike mobile targets. In similar fashion, our ability to deter potential Chinese aggression against Taiwan requires that we demonstrate the ability to reach into a highly contested environment and locate, identify, and strike large numbers of mobile platforms – the aircraft and ships that would be part of a Chinese assault.

The Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with information in modern warfare and has unabashedly touted the military advantages of AI which it sees as central to moving from today’s “informationized” ways of warfighting to future “intelligentized” warfare.

For its part, the Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with information in modern warfare and has unabashedly touted the military advantages of AI which it sees as central to moving from today’s “informationized” ways of warfighting, to future “intelligentized” warfare. It is convinced that integrating AI into intelligent unmanned systems and in support of command decisionmaking will lead to disruptive battlefield advantages. It also intends to destroy an enemy’s information systems and decisionmaking processes which it views as the most important targets in information

warfare. The People’s Liberation Army’s “Systems Destruction Warfare” concept aims to systematically target the linkages and nodes that connect an advanced networked force.

Closing the near-term deterrence gap with China will require the U.S. military to organize and equip itself to win the information fight. That means moving

to an AI-enabled command and control architecture that facilitates faster and more precise decisionmaking and is smarter on day two of the fight after having learned, integrated, and deployed lessons from day one. That is one of the central findings of our recent report, Offset-X , that was released by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP).

AI will enable commanders to better understand the real-time battlespace in ways that humans cannot by rapidly analyzing vast amounts of data. As sensors continue to proliferate on and above the battlefield, the amount of data flowing to command centers will steadily increase. Already, the ability to analyze this data – still largely done manually – is constrained. AI will increase the capacity and accuracy to analyze these multiplying incoming data streams.

As evidenced in Ukraine, future warfare will be characterized by agile forces, moving beyond simple networks to frameworks that employ AI to manage the actions of large numbers of human-machine teams. These will be small, smart, networked, updatable, inexpensive, and open architecture systems that fill a range of missions. These new frameworks will permit operators and machines to overcome challenges of complexity so that what was once a single thing becomes a team of things – to expand attack surfaces and absorb lethality. Manned- unmanned teams hold the potential to greatly increase combat power, layer defensive and offensive capability, and enable development of resilient, multi-path kill chains. The force that can best master this new style of highly distributed combat in a contested cyber and electronic warfare environment will gain significant advantages in a future fight.

While extolling the importance of AI, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been slow to integrate AI. This will leave the Joint Force disadvantaged in any future information contest against a Chinese military relentlessly pursuing

intelligentized warfare. Moreover, AI is moving fast with large language models and generative AI pushing new boundaries seemingly every day. Yet, DoD asked for only $1.8 billion for AI in the 2024 budget request. DoD must move with more urgency to integrate AI across operations.

To begin with, we recommend that the military Services and Combatant Commands empower tactical units to experiment with, develop, and deploy robust, reliable and resilient software for those capabilities that they operate. Development of software and datacentric capabilities requires continuous prototyping and experimentation while also making full use of commercial technology. This is where tech firms can provide needed engineering talent to help DoD become more software-centric. Congress can help streamline and accelerate the Authorization to Operate process, central to scaling software solutions and building new information architectures. The length, costs, and complexity of the process makes it exceedingly difficult for less-resourced commercial providers to deliver software to warfighters. Unless this process is made easier, faster, and more efficient, DoD will be unable to rapidly adapt to a changing technological environment, and warfighters will lack the cutting-edge software needed at the tactical edge. RF

Mac Thornberry served 26 years as a Member of Congress and served as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee from 2015-2019. He continues to work at the intersection of technology and national security and serves as a board member of various companies and non- profit organizations, including the Special Competitive Studies Project. Ylli Bajraktari serves the President & CEO of the SCSP. He previously served as Executive Director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Prior to joining NSCAI, he served as Chief of Staff to National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

While extolling the importance of AI, the Department of Defense has been slow to integrate AI. This will leave the Joint Force disadvantaged in any future information contest against a Chinese military relentlessly pursuing intelligentized warfare.

AI and the Future of Schooling

by FREDERICK M. HESS

Over the past year, eerily human artificial intelligence has crossed from the province of science fiction into daily reality. Displaying an astonishing ability to write poetry, code programs, summarize research, and ace the SAT, AI has profound implications for education.

The early response has tended to take one of two forms: sky-is-falling panic or an odd triumphalism. On the one hand, school districts have moved to ban AI from local servers and fearful educators have worried that their jobs are at risk. On the other, techno-optimists are eager to explain that schools no longer need to do the tedious work of teaching students to write because AI will do it for them.

Needless to say, I suspect both takes are deeply flawed. As I explore in my new book The Great School Rethink , technological advances, ubiquitous educational choice, and the dislocations wrought by the pandemic create new opportunities to tackle persistent challenges in schooling.

But all of this starts with being clear-eyed about the technology and how it’s used. For instance, last winter, just weeks after ChatGPT debuted , 30 percent of four-year college students said they were already turning in AI-written assignments. As AI becomes more powerful, convenient, and familiar, those numbers will skyrocket. How can educators know whether students are writing their own book reports, term papers, or admissions essays?

I mean, AI is really good at school. GPT-4, the successor to ChatGPT, has tested at the 93rd percentile on the SAT reading and writing test, the 90th on the bar exam, the 77th on the certified sommelier exam, and the 84th on Advanced Placement macroeconomics. And teachers and professors find it tough to distinguish AI-written work from student work, largely because AI tends to be banal and rote in a manner similar to so much student writing. (That so many students write like chat-bots is a pretty good distillation of what we need to do better.)

Now, some readers may say, “Wait a moment. Aren’t challenges about grading, not learning?” It’s a really useful distinction. But remember that schools are supposed to help students master knowledge and skills. That means we need to know what students have learned. That’s where “grading” and assessment come in.

After all, it’s a big problem if a student uses AI to pass a driver’s exam and then gets behind the wheel without knowing to stop at a red light (or which pedal is the brake). Similarly, calculators are terrific time-savers once students have mastered multiplication, but students won’t actually learn or understand computation if they’re just mashing buttons. While this distinction regarding the use of calculators may seem obvious today, it wasn’t when they were first introduced. Indeed, the introduction of calculators heralded the same mix of unhelpful wishful thinking and hand-wringing that we see with AI today.

Technological advances, ubiquitous educational choice, and the dislocations wrought by the pandemic create new opportunities to tackle persistent challenges in schooling. But all of this starts with being clear-eyed about the technology and how it’s used.

Frederick M. Hess

But the plain truth is that — whether the subject is division, Dante, or driving — AI makes it easy for learners to show proficiency without ever mastering essential knowledge or skills. That’s a problem. It’s clearer how we might guard against that with a driver’s exam or the LSAT; it’s more complicated when it comes to essays, book reports, and term papers.

That raises a huge issue that is simultaneously disorienting, troubling, and exciting: AI is about to upend what we think of as “good teaching.” Skilled teachers typically try to maximize the amount of class time devoted to discussions, interactive problem-solving, or handson-shoulder coaching. Consequently, teachers try to have students do much of their writing at home. Teachers have always had to manage concerns about plagiarism or untoward assistance but such tactics lacked the easy, wholesale efficiency of AI. This means that teachers will need to rethink familiar, time-tested routines.

Teachers will need to bring writing back into the classroom, where teachers can observe the writing process and engage with students. They’ll need to check in with students at each stage of the writing process, as they develop a thesis, frame arguments, identify sources, and so forth. There will be a place for more oral presentations. And all this is good! While some teachers may initially balk, helping students become more conscientious writers and more purposeful thinkers is a terrific thing.

Ubiquitous information and on-demand writing are powerful tools, but their value depends on how they’re used. If AI can write a business plan or create a potent deepfake image, students need to know how to consider the sources and judge the merits for themselves. If the world is rife with AI-produced analysis and content, it’s

ever more crucial that students learn how to distinguish wheat from chaff.

What does this imply for the shape of schooling? There’s a strong case for pushing more emphasis on cultural literacy (as envisioned by E.D. Hirsch), if only so that students have some basis for evaluating the validity of AI handiwork. Testing and assessment are going to loom large in all of this, as we seek ways to ensure that students are actually learning the things they need to know. If you thought efforts to teach students to navigate online environments and to spot fake news were important before, just wait until AIwritten summaries start treating AIgenerated fabrications as authoritative sources.

AI will also prove to be a powerful resource as we wrestle with these changes. New AI tutoring systems make it possible for students to have an always-available mentor who can answer an extraordinary range of questions. Those same AI resources help facilitate the creation of immersive virtual environments in which students can access learning experiences which are otherwise impossible, dangerous, or ludicrously expensive—whether that’s terraforming Mars, experimenting with toxic chemicals, or touring the Louvre.

It’s a good bet that many familiar debates about pedagogy, assessment, instruction, and the shape of schooling are about to be reshaped. We just don’t yet know which ones. Or exactly how. RF

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of The Great School Rethink (Harvard Education Press 2023).

The plain truth is that whether the subject is division, Dante, or driving AI makes it easy for learners to show proficiency without ever mastering essential knowledge or skills.

How AI is Reshaping Transportation

by Jonathan L. Gifford

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in various industries, including transportation. In the United States, AI is revolutionizing the way people travel, commute, and transport goods. This essay explores the profound impact of AI on transportation in the US, discussing its benefits, challenges, and potential future developments.

That paragraph was produced by ChatGPT in only a few seconds as the introduction to an 800word essay on AI and transportation. The article went on to discuss impacts on efficient traffic management (200 words), enhanced safety measures (200 words), optimized logistics and freight management (200 words), challenges and considerations (150 words), future developments (150 words), and conclusion (100 words).

It was my first foray using ChatGPT (or any other large language model). I hesitated to ask it for my biography, as suggested by a friend. I figured I would need a nourishing drink for that. I had sketched out my own article before asking ChatGPT and that’s what follows. But ChatGPT’s essay would certainly have passed muster as an undergraduate – or even graduate student – essay on the topic.

ChatGPT is right – AI has emerged as a transformative force in transportation. It will affect both how we use transportation – the demand side – and how we supply transportation facilities and services.

The supply side has some obvious areas where changes could come, although it’s hard to predict how much and how fast. AI can and most likely will advance the boundary of delivery. We already have hundreds of cooler-sized Starship robots delivering food and drinks around my university’s campus. AI can make that faster, better, and cheaper almost certainly. Better drones on land and sea and in the air? Yes. Better driver assistance systems like crash avoidance? Already here with more to

come. Autonomous cars and trucks? Related to the drone question, but yes in time.

The demand side is harder to assess. An axiom of the transportation field is that transportation is a “derived demand.” Human travel typically arises from people’s desire to consume something else at a spatial remove – to shop, study, worship, work, socialize, eat at a restaurant, engage in military battle, and so forth. To be sure, some travel is instrumental – jogging, joyriding, or recreational bicycling. Similarly, goods transport arises from the desire of a buyer and seller to exchange goods for compensation.

The impact of AI on transportation is thus inextricably tied to the broader social, economic, and geopolitical environment, which will also be encountering the effects of AI. Consider the commercial real estate sector and the changes wrought by remote working. A commercial office building in downtown San Francisco is on the market and expected to sell at an 80 percent markdown from its pre-Covid price. Eighty percent! That’s not AI, but it provides a hint of how a technology as simple as video conferencing, which was demonstrated at the Bell Telephone display at Expo ’67 in Montreal when I was a kid, has suddenly swept the world.

In the world of goods movement, impacts are likely to be large as well. AI may shift the efficiency frontier between the onshoring and offshoring of manufacturing. If factories using AI can reduce onshore production costs, the demand for shipping goods from remote markets may decline.

One of the ways that AI works is through the creation of “deep fakes,” that is a fake so good that you can’t tell it’s not genuine. The deep fakes often are developed by placing two AIs in competition with each other. One AI produces the

Jonathan L. Gifford

AI has emerged as a transformative force in transportation. It will affect both how we use transportation – the demand side – and how we supply transportation facilities and services.

fake, and the other AI tries to detect whether it’s genuine. As the fakes get better, the detector gets better, and vice versa.

What might that mean for transportation? Counterfeit spare parts is one area of concern. Spare parts that support safe operation of equipment – aircraft, ships, automobiles – have potentially deadly effects if they aren’t genuine. Counterfeit credentials are another concern.

Still another concern is the impact of artificial intelligence on job growth and employment. A 2022 study by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan found that “up to 94 percent of long-haul trucking operator-hours may be impacted as the technology improves to operate in all weather conditions.”

To what extent can we anticipate these impacts? And to what extent must we sharpen our agility to respond quickly, seize opportunities, tackle threats? Incumbent market actors will not take this lying down. Governments at all levels can expect requests from all types of incumbents to protect their

businesses. That could include lawyers, engineers, container shipping crane operators, truck drivers, and other service workers who might be facing displacement.

But we should keep in mind that AI has the potential to help society tackle some of the big challenges we face in the decades to come.

Feeding, clothing, housing, and educating a growing global population poses enormous challenges. Faster, better, cheaper, and more environmentally beneficial transportation can help tackle those challenges. AI can play an important part in helping us to achieve those objectives.

Meanwhile, it may be time for me to fix a drink and ask ChatGPT for my biography. RF

Jonathan L. Gifford is a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and the director of the Center for Transportation Public-Private Partnership Policy.

A 2022 study found that “up to 94 percent of long-haul trucking operator-hours may be impacted as the technology improves to operate in all weather conditions.”

How AI can Reshape Lawmaking in the U.S. Congress

by ChatGPT

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already begun to revolutionize numerous industries, from healthcare to finance. However, one area that has yet to fully embrace the potential of AI is lawmaking. The U.S. Congress, for example, still relies on traditional methods of information gathering and analysis to make important policy decisions. However, the integration of AI into the legislative process has the potential to transform the way laws are made, improving efficiency, accuracy, and transparency.

One of the most significant benefits of AI in lawmaking is the ability to process vast amounts of data quickly and accurately. This is particularly important when it comes to analyzing data related to complex policy issues. For example, imagine that Congress is tasked with developing legislation related to climate change. In the past, lawmakers would have had to manually sift through mountains of data related to carbon emissions, global temperature trends, and other relevant information. However, with AI, this process can be significantly streamlined. Algorithms can be developed to analyze data from a wide range of sources, including scientific studies, government reports, and public opinion polls. This data can then be used to inform the creation of policy proposals, making the lawmaking process much more efficient.

Another potential use of AI in lawmaking is in the development of predictive models. By analyzing data related to past policy decisions and their outcomes, AI algorithms can help predict the likely consequences of new legislation. This can be particularly valuable when it comes to assessing the potential economic impact of new policies. For example, AI could be used to model the effects of proposed tax reforms, allowing lawmakers to make more informed decisions about how best to structure the tax code.

In addition to improving the efficiency and accuracy of the

lawmaking process, AI can also help increase transparency. By analyzing public data related to lobbying and campaign finance, AI algorithms can help identify potential conflicts of interest and other ethical concerns. This could be particularly valuable in a political climate where concerns about the influence of special interests on the legislative process are high.

Of course, there are also potential downsides to the use of AI in lawmaking. One concern is that reliance on algorithms could lead to a lack of human judgment in the legislative process. There is also the risk that AI could be used to perpetuate biases and inequalities, particularly if the algorithms used are not properly designed or tested.

Despite these potential challenges, the benefits of AI in lawmaking are significant enough that it is likely that we will see increased integration of AI into the legislative process in the coming years. Already, we are seeing examples of AI being used in a limited capacity in Congress. For example, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has developed an AI-powered tool that allows lawmakers and staff to quickly find relevant information on a wide range of policy issues.

Looking ahead, it is likely that we will see more extensive use of AI in the lawmaking process, particularly as the technology continues to improve. This could include the development of AIpowered policy recommendation systems that suggest potential legislative solutions to complex policy issues. Additionally, AI could be used to analyze the impact of new laws once they are enacted, helping to ensure that policies are achieving their intended goals.

In conclusion, the integration of AI into the lawmaking process has the potential to significantly reshape the way laws are created and implemented. By improving efficiency, accuracy, and transparency, AI can help lawmakers make better-informed decisions and develop policies that are better aligned with the needs of their constituents. While there are certainly challenges associated with the use of AI in lawmaking, the potential benefits are significant enough that it is likely that we will see continued experimentation with this technology in the years to come. RF

The above article was generated in less than a minute by ChatGPT on April 23, 2023 in response to the following prompt: “Write a 500 word article on artificial intelligence and how it can reshape lawmaking in the U.S. Congress.”

One of the most significant benefits of AI in lawmaking is the ability to process vast amounts of data quickly and accurately.

Memo to Washington: AI Needs Your Full Attention … Now!

by PETER STONE

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a science and a set of computational technologies that are inspired by — but typically operate quite differently from — the ways people use their nervous systems and bodies to sense, learn, reason, and take action.”

So begins the 2016 report of the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence that I led. It is particularly important to understand from this definition that AI is not any single thing, but rather a collection of many different technologies. Specifically, GPT-4, the most recent and most powerful generative AI model released by OpenAI, is one of many existing AI-based systems, each with different capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses.

The report continues:

“Unlike in the movies, there is no race of superhuman robots on the horizon.... And while the potential to abuse AI technologies must be acknowledged and addressed, their greater potential is, among other things, to make driving safer, help children learn, and extend and enhance people’s lives.”

Though much has changed in the seven years since this report was released, I still stand by these words. If you’ve spent any time interacting with ChatGPT (and if you haven’t, you must!), I suspect that you’ve been very impressed with its capabilities. It, and other similar systems, are able to generate text and images that are amazingly realistic. But even so, they do not come close to fully replicating human intelligence, let alone surpassing it. And as such, there is little risk that they will soon get out of control and pose an imminent “existential” threat to humankind — at least not anywhere near to the degree that nuclear weapons and pandemics already do.

Nonetheless, I, along with many of my colleagues, recently signed an open letter that called for a public and verifiable pause

by all developers of “AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

While I did not draft the letter myself, and do not believe that such a global, verifiable pause is remotely realistic, I signed in order to call attention to the potential for bad actors (i.e., human beings) to abuse AI technologies and to urge that efforts to understand and control the “imminent” threats be accelerated.

In my opinion, the development and deployment of this one specific type of AI technology — large generative models such as GPT4 — is outpacing our ability to understand their strengths and limitations. A flurry of innovation is still uncovering how they can be used (and misused), and to understand their likely social, economic, and political impacts. We are all readjusting to a world in which realistic-sounding text, and realisticlooking images and videos, may have been created by a machine. This upends long-held assumptions about our world, calling into question deeply ingrained notions such as “seeing is believing.”

As a result, we need to speed up and increase investments in research into understanding current models and how they can be constrained without losing their abilities. To be clear, I do not at all advocate slowing down technological progress on AI. The opportunity costs are too great. But I implore everyone in a position to do so to urgently speed up societal responses, or “guardrails.”

One way to appreciate the urgency is to reflect back on the rollout of other disruptive technologies. The Model T Ford was introduced in 1908, and it took more than 50 years to get to the point of 100 million automobiles in the world. During those decades, we, as a society, gradually built up the infrastructure to support them and make them (relatively) safe, including road networks, parking structures, insurance, seat belts, air bags, traffic signals, and all sorts of other regulations and traffic laws. Today, most

The development and deployment of this one specific type of AI technology — large generative models such as GPT4 — is outpacing our ability to understand their strengths and limitations.

Peter Stone

people would agree that the benefits of automobiles outweigh their (not insignificant) risks and harms. The same goes for things like electricity (which has caused many fires), airplanes (which have been used as lethal weapons), and many other technologies that have gradually become ubiquitous and shaped modern society.

ChatGPT reached 100 million users in a matter of weeks, rather than years or decades. If the pace of the release of new, more powerful LLMs (Large Language Models) are going to continue as it has (or even accelerate), then we urgently need to speed up efforts to understand their implications (both good and bad) and craft appropriate, measured responses.

An essential role for universities in this effort is to rapidly increase the size of the AI-literate workforce, not only to satisfy demand of private industry, but more importantly to help infuse governments and policy bodies with people trained in the details of AI. I help lead multiple efforts at The University of Texas at Austin towards this end, including the Computer Science department’s new online Masters in AI and a university-wide

interdisciplinary grand challenge project on defining, evaluating, and building “Good Systems.”

But these efforts are only one piece of the puzzle. I thus call on everyone in a position to influence our society’s response to this challenging moment in technological progress to engage deeply and help make sure we get it right.

Policymakers need to take all actions possible to minimize the chances that the harms will outweigh the benefits for any group of individuals and for society as a whole; and of course we always keep our eyes open towards any developments that could lead to loss of control.

But most importantly, we need to fully support progress in development and understanding of AI technologies that have the potential to improve our nation and the world in so many ways! RF

Dr. Peter Stone holds the Truchard Foundation Chair in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He is Associate Chair of the Computer Science Department, as well as Director of Texas Robotics.

As a result, we need to speed up and increase investments in research into understanding current models and how they can be constrained without losing their abilities.

Bring Back Conference Committees

by MARK STRAND

Not that many years ago, one of the grandest spectacles in the legislative process was the Conference Committee. House and Senate Committee chairs would battle over significant points to reach a consensus. Unfortunately, like so many aspects of the legislative process, the Conference Committee has fallen victim to the dramatic shift of congressional power to party leadership. If Congress wants to restore its powers, restarting this traditional way of hammering out compromises would be wise.

Conference Committees are ad hoc committees formed to resolve differences between the House and Senate. The chairs of these temporary committees are usually the chairs of the committees that produced the legislation in question. The remaining members are then appointed by the party leaders in both chambers and ratified by the entire membership.

Once the committees met, a dynamic process would occur, usually behind closed doors. Our book, Surviving Inside Congress, described it as being like the knife fight in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (“Rules! There are no rules in a knife fight”). Staff would resolve slight differences, and the two chairs would determine how to resolve the significant differences.

It worked well because the people resolving the differences were the experts in the subject matter of the legislation. Committees are the fundamental way Congress creates a division of labor so that Members can become specialists on specific issues and act as agents for their chamber and party. Conference Committees also allowed chairs to keep the promises they made to Members to gain initial passage. It also allowed them to remove items from the bill as punishment should a Member renege on a commitment to vote for the bill. The net effect was to help build strong and somewhat bipartisan and diverse majorities for legislation. It also had the effect of building relationships based on trust between Members and Committee chairs.

Much of this has changed over the last few decades as party leaders – the Speaker mostly - gathered power and control over the process. Unfortunately, that power shift has come at the expense of Committees. In political science, this is called conditional party government, where Members of Congress agree to back the Speaker, regardless of their own views, in exchange for being protected from tough votes and increased assistance from the party’s campaign apparatus. Both parties have engaged in this practice since the turn of the century.

It turns out that strict party control is barely efficient and rarely effective. Party leadership weakened committees. For instance, after the 1994 Republican takeover of the Congress, Speaker Gingrich cut committee budgets by one-third and imposed term limits on Committee Chairs. As hyper-partisanship increased in the 1990s, bipartisan legislative efforts became more difficult. The narrow majorities of the early 2000s led party leadership to avoid tough votes on authorization and appropriations bills to protect their Members. This led to an abandonment of normal appropriations in favor of unamendable omnibus and “minibus” spending bills that avoided tough floor fights while neutering the authorization committee process that allows for effective Congressional oversight. Today, two-thirds of the non-defense budget is unauthorized, and the appropriations process is combined into one massive trillion-dollar bill that no one reads, and no one can change.

Today’s party leaders have further weakened committees by rarely appointing Conference Committees to resolve House and Senate differences. Instead, the leaders send messages back and forth, offering compromises and solutions to their legislative differences. This process nicknamed “ping-ponging,” sends messages back and forth between chambers, with the Capitol Rotunda being a metaphorical net.

Mark Strand

Like so many aspects of the legislative process, the Conference Committee has fallen victim to the dramatic shift of congressional power to party leadership.

Instead of having the Committee members, the actual subject matter experts, iron out an agreement, the leaders make a deal based on political imperatives. As a result, the Speaker, the Senate Majority Leader, and the President become the only legislators in the process, with the other 533 members of the House and Senate merely being observers who ratify their leader’s agreement.

That is different from how Congress is supposed to work. The purpose of a congress is to bring together diverse representatives of the nation to reach compromises everyone can live with.

This is not to say that one party’s political interests never align with the nation’s values, but in the current contest between developing good policy and good politics, politics seems to be winning hands down.

Congress should restore the traditional Conference Committee system. It forces the Administration to deal with policy experts in the committees instead of just the Speaker’s or Senate Leader’s office. It brings more regional and diverse political representation into negotiating policy solutions. It also allows both chambers to build bipartisan majorities as deals are cut to win votes.

Is the Conference Committee always a pretty process? Unfortunately, no. That’s why the Prussian Otto von Bismarck

remarked that legislation and sausage closely resembled each other. You did not want to watch either of them being made, but you liked the result once the work was completed.

The key is restoring strength to Committees, ensuring that multiple members of both parties participate in the legislative process. In addition, strong committees increase the power of Congress since the Executive Branch must deal with multiple points of power rather than one or two people in the House and the Senate. Finally, restoring Conference Committees would, most importantly, restore policy expertise on complex legislation.

It makes no sense to ask a committee to spend months developing legislation only to have the party leaders shape the final package. The solution to Congress’ loss of power vis-àvis the Executive Branch is to open up and restore a robust legislative process where Committees once again act as agents of their chambers rather than merely being the opening act for the actual show between the President, the Speaker, and the Senate Majority Leader. RF

Mark Strand served as President of the Congressional Institute from 2007 until his retirement earlier this year. He previously spent 24 years as a senior congressional staff member on Capitol Hill.

Debate Should America Continue to Accept Asylum Seekers?

Yes, Our Founders wanted America to be a Refuge, and It Remains a Part of Our Identity Today

by DAVID HAINES

Refuge in America. So many hopes of so many people in the world rest on those three words. So much of American history rests on those three words. Our nation’s founders saw America as a land of refuge, whether it was George Washington’s hope that the country could be a “safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted parts of mankind” or Thomas Jefferson’s hope that it could be a “sanctuary” from the “misrule of Europe.” It is hard to imagine the United States without its role as a place of refuge for those fleeing political, religious, or cultural persecution. Often the reasons for providing refuge have been directly related to U.S. actions — for example, refuge for former allies from collapsed proAmerican governments in Vietnam and Afghanistan. At other times, the reasons for providing refuge have been less directly related to U.S. actions and reflect a more general humanitarian response to wars, dictatorial regimes, or natural disasters.

America has always been a land of refuge and will continue to be so. That is the easy part of any debate about refugee and asylum issues. The more difficult question is how many of what kind of people should be provided refuge. That question has been addressed by the United States in two main ways. First has been a modestly-sized formal refugee program — about 10 percent of overall immigration—designed to be open to the whole world and consistent with the goals of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Second has been a broad set of more flexible, ad hoc programs that have addressed specific American concerns: religious minorities in Russia, Cubans fleeing a still-communist country, natural disasters in Haiti and Central America. Those programs mostly take the

form of either temporary status in the United States (various forms of parole and protected status) or special immigration programs: for example, Cubans through the Cuban Adjustment Act and Afghan and Iraqi interpreters through Special Immigrant Visas. The numbers provided refuge through such programs have varied depending on world events and the interests of particular administrations — sharply down under the Trump Administration, sharply up under the Biden Administration.

The number of people provided refuge through all these options can be at least partially controlled by adding or deleting programs or simply changing program criteria and procedures.

None of these programs, however, addresses one particular and primal refuge situation. Somebody simply shows up at the door, uninvited and often unknown. The “door” may be at the border or anywhere inside the United States. There is no referral from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), no channel of “lily pads” and “safe havens” (as for Afghans), no U.S. ships picking up people at sea (as for Vietnamese), no international conferences on regional conflicts that generate promises of resettlement slots.

These people showing up “uninvited” are refugees in the general sense of the word. In legal terms, however, they are “asylum seekers.” If approved, they become “asylees” rather than “refugees.” This separate asylum track is based in the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980. That Act, following the UNHCR, has specific grounds for deserving refuge, leading to especially contentious arguments about whether the fear and suffering causing

(cont’d on page 20)

David Haines America has always been a land of refuge and will continue to be so. That is the easy part of any debate about refugee and asylum issues.

Should America Continue to Accept Asylum Seekers?

No, America’s Refugee Policy is Unrecognizable, and It is Time to Course Correct

by LORA RIES

America has prided itself on providing refuge to immigrants fleeing persecution for centuries. In the late 1960s, Congress formalized that commitment into law. Over 50 years later, however, our refugee policies are unrecognizable to the point of being almost meaningless. It is well-past time for a significant course correction.

Following the original 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which did not include any provisions regarding refugee or asylum protections, the INA Amendments of 1965 added a conditional entry for aliens who demonstrated persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion, and had fled a Communist or Communist-dominated country or any country in the Middle East. In 1968, the U.S. acceded to the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which incorporated the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, in which the United States had not participated. Besides getting rid of the geographic limitation, signing on to the international agreement meant expanding the three grounds on which an alien could claim persecution to include nationality and the undefined membership in a particular social group (PSG).

Unfortunately, enforcing these measures has proven more difficult. Today, the U.S. has needlessly made the administration of providing refugee protection confusing by creating two separate paths and processes: An alien overseas applies for refugee protection, while an alien at our border or inside the U.S. applies for asylum. In both scenarios, the applicant must prove the same elements, per the Protocol described above, but the former is much more orderly and manageable than the latter.

Through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees refers a refugee application — typically from one of the regional refugee

camps or resettlements located around the globe — to the State Department. The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) then interviews the refugee applicant overseas and adjudicates the case. If granted, the applicant is vetted by Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and members of the Intelligence Community before the refugee is flown to the U.S. The process usually takes at least 12 months. The number of refugee cases the U.S. resettles is capped annually and the law requires nongovernmental organizations to notify U.S. state and local communities before resettlement to ensure there are adequate housing and employment opportunities.

It is important to note that financially, a country like the U.S. can help more persecuted people in their own regions of the world than by resettling a relatively smaller number of people in the U.S., far from their home country, familiar language, culture, and more. Keeping people safe in or near their home country also makes it more likely that they will return home when country conditions improve to help rebuild.

Conversely, our asylum system is used by those aliens who are already in the U.S. or are at our doorstep. The benefits of vetting overseas — in or near the applicant’s country, where criminal or other relevant information can more easily be obtained — are lost. The U.S. government simply does not have the resources or the time to investigate and verify the volume of asylum claims that are made each year. And yet, by offering aliens a work authorization document — the true benefit that most people coming to the U.S. seek — just six months after they complete their application, our system incentivizes asylum.

(cont’d on next page)

Lora Ries

Today, the U.S. has needlessly made the administration of providing refugee protection confusing by creating two separate paths and processes...

Should America Continue to Accept Asylum Seekers?

Furthermore, there is no annual cap on asylum applications and no fee for the application. With nearly 9 million benefit applications pending at USCIS and over 2.2 million cases in the immigration court backlog, aliens know that filing an asylum application buys them years here in the U.S., during which time they can work, have U.S. citizen children, and put down roots, making their deportation less likely. This low-risk, high-reward incentive structure is a recipe for fraud, which is reflected by the fact that Immigration Judges granted only 14 percent of asylum cases in 2022. The results of this policy are bad for the U.S., of course, but they also hurt other countries because they makes it less likely that aliens will return home to rebuild when conditions improve.

In recent years, the Left has compounded our asylum system’s problems with its open border policies and rhetoric. From the beginning of his campaign, President Biden encouraged mass illegal immigration, and millions of people from over 160 countries have responded, turning themselves in on our border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas refers to these masses as “asylum seekers” and “vulnerable populations.” He releases most of them into the U.S. and encourages them to apply for asylum even though he has admitted that most are not eligible for the benefit.

The Left has also shoehorned an ever-widening number of circumstances into the “membership in a particular social group” ground that was originally added by the UN Protocol. Today, being a domestic violence victim, living in a country with general crime and violence, and their go-to villain, climate change, all constitute grounds for relocation. Never mind that none of these circumstances involve either membership or a social group. The Left has taken our refugee policies far-afield from their original intent and purpose to achieve its open border agenda.

To restore a lawful, orderly, and manageable process to asylum and refugee protection, Congress should: rescind PSG as an overly broad ground for protection and return to more objective and immutable characteristics as the basis for persecution; take into account the number of pending asylum cases at both USCIS and in the immigration courts and set a combined, manageable annual cap for both asylum and refugee cases; prohibit aliens illegally crossing our border between ports of entry from applying for asylum; reinstitute the “Remain in Mexico” program so that would-be migrants know they won’t be released into the U.S. by merely saying a few words of fear at the border; require implementation of the safe third country concept — which requires an alien to be returned to the first safe country in which they entered to apply for asylum there — to end country shopping; prohibit work authorization unless and until an asylum application is granted rather than tie it to merely filing the application; provide immigration judges with summary judgment authority to quickly remove frivolous cases, thus greatly reducing the court backlog; and require USCIS to charge a fee for asylum applications.

The fraud and abuse of America’s refugee and asylum protection systems have rendered our second most important immigration benefit — after U.S. citizenship — almost meaningless. This harms not only the integrity of our immigration system, but also those who were truly persecuted because their applications are buried among the many millions of pending cases and they must wait years longer for a decision. It is past time for Congress to end the fraud and decrease the backlogs so those who merit protection can receive it in an expeditious fashion, and those who are not eligible are quickly denied and removed. RF

flight are a direct result of government persecution in countries of origin — or of a government’s utter failure to protect its own people.

Furthermore, asylum processing is inherently legalistic and requires that each individual case be considered on its own merits. The perceived problem today is that this asylum system is out of control. The numbers are high and threaten to become higher. Yet each case takes time, often years. In the interim, releasing asylum-seekers into the community—especially if they have relatives—is more humane and certainly more cost-effective than incarcerating asylum-seekers for the duration of their cases.

The “asylum problem” in the United States, then, reflects a quandary. Asylum is a laudable and legally mandated system for those individuals who do not fit easily into other U.S. options for providing refuge. However, that asylum system is facing high case numbers

that make its individual case approach excruciatingly slow — at least without greatly expanded resources that the U.S. Congress is unlikely to provide. The Biden Administration is attempting to alleviate this inherent quandary by expanding other options — most of them temporary — so that potential asylum seekers have broader and more regularized options.

Predictably, the results are mixed, and the fundamental quandary remains. The individuality of asylum cases, including due process, does not mesh well with high numbers, much less high and rising numbers. That is indeed a problem. But it is no reason to ignore a fundamental human right that also happens to be a U.S. legal requirement as well as a fundamental value underlying our Republic. RF

David Haines is a Professor Emeritus at George Mason University and author of Safe Haven: A History of Refugees in America.

Lora Ries is Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.

(Haines, cont’d)

Garcia, Miller-Meeks, & Ellzey Discuss Their Own Military Service & the Importance of Supporting Our Troops

WASHINGTON, DC – With Memorial Day approaching, The Ripon Society held a dinner discussion on May 22nd with three Members of Congress who served in the military prior to their election and were invited to discuss not only the importance of taking care of our troops, but how their service in uniform shapes their service on Capitol Hill today.

The Members were: U.S. Rep. Mike Garcia, who served nearly 20 years as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy and now represents the 27th District of California in the House; U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who served 24 years as a nurse and doctor in the Army and now represents the 1st District of Iowa; and, U.S. Rep. Jake Ellzey, who served 20 years as a fighter pilot and helicopter pilot in the Navy and now represents the 6th District of Texas.

versus Democrats. This is about the Constitution. This is about prolonging this beautiful experiment that we call the United States of America with an oath to defend it just like we did while we were in uniform.”

First elected to the House in a May 2020 special election, Garcia added that one of the ways to prolong and

Americans don’t realize our troops start at $22,000 a year when they enlist in the military. We’ve got a lot of work to do to take care of them, but we’ve got good folks here on the ground doing that.”

Miller-Meeks agreed and opened her remarks by talking about her own time in uniform, and how, in her family, serving in the military has deep roots.

“We have to double down on our commitment to our active-duty soldiers as well as our veterans.”

Mike Garcia

Remarks to The Ripon Society

May 22, 2023

“Serving in the military has been an honor for me,” she stated. “It’s a real privilege. My Dad enlisted in the Air Force, so he was career military. My Mom was a military spouse, had a GED. Both my parents worked. I don’t remember a time when they did not work. We traveled from military base to military base, always ping ponging back to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.”

Garcia kicked off the discussion by talking about some of the pressing challenges facing America and how his time in uniform compares to his job on Capitol Hill.

“What we’re doing today is just as important as the missions that we flew over Iraq,” he stated. “We are literally in the process of trying to save this country despite some of the headwinds that we’ve got from the Executive Branch. In the end, for me, this isn’t about the parties. This isn’t about Republicans

protect that experiment is by protecting and taking care of the men and women who keep us free.

“We have to double down on our commitment to our active-duty soldiers as well as our veterans,” the California lawmaker said. “Right now — with all the swirl, chaos and drama that’s going on and these massive budgets that we’re looking at — we can’t forget that it comes down to that soldier who’s making $22,000 a year. Most

Noting she had brothers and sisters who also served in the military and her grandparents and uncle served in World War II, as well, she added:

“I think service is what’s most important. And I think we serve in a variety of ways, whether it’s in the military or not. But I would say that there’s not a time that doesn’t go by that I do not acknowledge and know that I’m here because of the service of those, such as Jake and Mike beside me, who are willing to defend our

freedoms. It’s a very monumental task. And I’ll echo Mike in saying that we need to do what we can to support our military. I don’t believe they’re supported well right now by people at the highest echelons of command. And they need the support that we can give them.”

Ellzey concurred, and kicked off his remarks by talking about the tough votes he has taken as a Member of Congress, and how this experience pales in comparison to some of the things he saw and did while serving in Iraq.

“There are no hard votes because the three of us have seen things and participated in things that are hard,” he stated. “We have lost friends. On our last day in Iraq, we lost this young man, Clark Schwedler, in April of 2007. And then 16 years later, the other guy who was wounded in that operation committed suicide. That was just a month and a half ago. We know what that sacrifice is. There are no hard votes. There are just hard explanations.”

Making reference to the current debate over raising the debt limit and some of the charges being levied by some on the other side of the political aisle, Ellzey continued:

“We’ll see what happens over the next few days. But the threats are out there in ways that we haven’t witnessed in probably 80 years. And the other side is concentrating on things that are not applicable to the national security of the United States. So it’s important that we get these things right. Moreover, as we deal with veteran issues … I think it’s remarkable and I think somewhat sad that the other side is trying to out-veteran us, which I never thought I’d see.”

“We’re doing everything we can for our veterans. The VA has nearly doubled in size in the last five years. And so they’re going to put us in some positions that make us sound like we’re anti-veteran, which I think is extremely cynical. I don’t like having people use my veteran brothers and sisters as a wedge. I think you might see some of that. But we’ve got important work to do, and none of us need this. We’re called to do it. And that’s how all three

of us conduct ourselves all the time. And that’s why I’m so proud to sit up here with these two wonderful people.”

Following their remarks, the three lawmakers took a number of questions, including one about the mental health challenges many veterans face when they leave the battlefield and what Congress can do to help them when they return home.

“It used to be a stigma if you had a mental health challenge or suicidal thoughts or PTSD,” Garcia stated. “As veterans, we don’t like to talk about it. What we need to do as a culture is actually extract some of those conversations, but not from a bureaucrat, not from a politician, or not someone who hasn’t been there. The most valuable asset to a veteran in need is another veteran who has seen – who’s been there and been through it.”

“In an ideal world, the VA would also be there to give us that assistance and help with the therapy, help with whatever treatments are available for the challenges. But 20 years of the Global War on Terror is a lot. There are folks who have done six to eight rotations, into true combat, low-intensity conflict, but true combat operations where people are dying around them and they’re killing people. It is impossible for that to not take a toll on you mentally. If we can’t as a culture talk about it, if veterans can’t reach out and give that sort of asset to other veterans as therapists themselves, and if the VA can’t step up and start treating folks, then this is going to be a multi-generational problem.”

Miller-Meeks expressed similar concerns.

“The VA wants all care to be within the VA hospital system,” she remarked. “I don’t give a damn where you live. If you’re a veteran, you get care where you are because you go back to a community. And I’m just so tired of the excuses. We did a bill that said mental health and substance use disorder are part of the Mission Act because the VA doesn’t consider that, and that those individuals have to be seen within 10 days. Why did we do it? To force the VA to do the right thing.”

The key thing, she added, is making sure military families have the support they need.

“It is so important when you’re deployed six times or eight times or nine times that you know that your family is there,” the Iowa Republican stated. “We’re really putting a huge burden on family members and spouses and children when we’re deploying individuals that often. So how do we support that military family? How do we support that husband or wife to be faithful to take care of the family, to communicate when their loved one is away, so that those family units are going to be critically important, and then how do we support them to navigate through PTSD?”

For Ellzey, the other question is how to deal with a system that essentially takes America’s best and brightest and trains them to do “the worst.”

“One of my favorite things is to appoint Academy students,” he said. “They’re the best and the brightest of us with the biggest servants’ hearts and are usually involved in their church. They’re wonderful people. The people who enlist are very much the same. We train them very well and what do we send them to do? Over the course of two conflicts over 20 years, taking a human life is the worst thing another human being can do. And we’re asking the best of us to do it.

“For some, the bill must be paid sooner rather than later. For others, it takes 16 years like it did for my friend. But that bill must be paid, and the toll is on them. So if you come home and you try to find people who are going to have any concept of what it’s like to either take another life or watch somebody else take it, you can’t. So the peer-to-peer counseling is extremely important, especially as we’re aging out or especially as our Special Operators are now turning 50 like me. All they’ve ever done is shoot. So now they’re 50-years old, their bodies are broken, their families are probably broken, and now they can’t get hired even as contractors to pull the trigger. There are younger people to do that.” RF

Name: María Elvira Salazar

Occupation: Journalist, mother, and congresswoman representing Florida’s 27th District.

Previous jobs held: Five-time Emmy Awardwinning journalist, serving the Spanish-speaking audience of the United States and Latin America on Telemundo, Univision, AmericaTevé, MegaTV, and CNN en Español.

How has your career in journalism shaped your service on Capitol Hill? My constituents include many of the people I served in my 35 years as a member of the Spanish-language press. As a congresswoman, I approach my work the same way I did as a journalist: What are both sides of the story? What am I not seeing that I need to take into consideration? When I vote on the issues directly affecting my constituents, I make sure to understand the issues as fully as possible to make the most informed decision. This emphasis on attention to detail and nuance is what was required of me as a journalist, and this is what I believe makes a good public servant.

Looking back on your time as a journalist, what was the toughest interview you ever conducted? The toughest interview I have ever given was the one I did with Fidel Castro. Thirty years ago, interviewing one of Latin America’s most brutal dictators and the architect of the misery that caused millions of Cubans to live in exile, was impossible. As a Cuban-American, I felt it was my duty to ask Castro the hard questions. The legacy of pain and suffering that the dictator left behind had to be answered for, and the opportunity to get some of those answers had to be taken. His answers, while unsatisfactory, were important to showcase to the world: His ideas are destructive, and my viewers got to see them from the mouth of the dictator himself.

If you could have Congress solve one problem affecting Florida, what would it be? Congress must come together to solve the cost-of-living crisis that my constituents face in South Florida. Inflation must be put to an end. Housing policy must be updated to meet the needs of our rapidly growing real estate market. We need an immigration policy that meets the needs of our labor and agricultural markets, both of which are suffering from severe shortages and raising prices on American families. I have introduced legislation that would address all these concerns – now I need Congress to exert the political will to solve them!

Finally, what advice do you have for young people who would like to start a career in public life today? There is a time for everything. The first time I ran in 2018, I have to admit, I didn’t fully understand the commitment required of someone to run for Congress. Learning that lesson was valuable, because it taught me to be sharper, strategize better, and listen more. You are not always going to make it on the first try, or maybe even the second or third. Don’t let that discourage you: Remember, it’s through trial by fire that the most radiant of gold is made. If you truly believe in the mission of advancing the common good of your community as a public servant, make your case to your people. If you believe in yourself and work hard enough for it, they will believe in you too.

WE ARE THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE FOR TIMESHARE OWNERS

WE ARE THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE FOR TIMESHARE OWNERS

WE ARE THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE FOR TIMESHARE OWNERS

For over 30 years, the ARDA-Resort Owners’ Coalition (ARDA–ROC) has championed causes on every regulatory and legislative level and this includes protecting owners from exit company scams and deceptive practices.

For over 30 years, the ARDA-Resort Owners’ Coalition (ARDA–ROC) has championed causes on every regulatory and legislative level and this includes protecting owners from exit company scams and deceptive practices.

WE ARE THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE FOR TIMESHARE OWNERS

We are dedicated to providing essential resources and necessary information to help owners who want to exit their timeshare, avoid paying unnecessary fees or falling victim to deceptive or fraudulent exit schemes.

For over 30 years, the ARDA-Resort Owners’ Coalition (ARDA–ROC) has championed causes on every regulatory and legislative level and this includes protecting owners from exit company scams and deceptive practices.

We are dedicated to providing essential resources and necessary information to help owners who want to exit their timeshare, avoid paying unnecessary fees or falling victim to deceptive or fraudulent exit schemes.

For over 30 years, the ARDA-Resort Owners’ Coalition (ARDA–ROC) has championed causes on every regulatory and legislative level and this includes protecting owners from exit company scams and deceptive practices.

ARDA-ROC IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE RIPON SOCIETY

We are dedicated to providing essential resources and necessary information to help owners who want to exit their timeshare, avoid paying unnecessary fees or falling victim to deceptive or fraudulent exit schemes.

ARDA-ROC IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE RIPON SOCIETY

ARDA-ROC IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE RIPON SOCIETY

We are dedicated to providing essential resources and necessary information to help owners who want to exit their timeshare, avoid paying unnecessary fees or falling victim to deceptive or fraudulent exit schemes.

ARDA-ROC IS PROUD TO SUPPORT THE RIPON SOCIETY

The Coalition for Responsible Exit was created to help timeshare owners learn about their safe and responsible timeshare exit options. If your resort or HOA is interested in joining the Coalition for Responsible Exit or if you want to discuss how to best share this information with your HOA Board, please e-mail rclements@arda.org

The Coalition for Responsible Exit was created to help timeshare owners learn about their safe and responsible timeshare exit options. If your resort or HOA is interested in joining the Coalition for Responsible Exit or if you want to discuss how to best share this information with your HOA Board, please e-mail rclements@arda.org

The Coalition for Responsible Exit was created to help timeshare owners learn about their safe and responsible timeshare exit options. If your resort or HOA is interested in joining the Coalition for Responsible Exit or if you want to discuss how to best share this information with your HOA Board, please e-mail rclements@arda.org

Visit www.responsibleexit.com to learn more.

Visit www.responsibleexit.com to learn more.

Visit www.responsibleexit.com to learn more.

The Coalition for Responsible Exit was created to help timeshare owners learn about their safe and responsible timeshare exit options. If your resort or HOA is interested in joining the Coalition for Responsible Exit or if you want to discuss how to best share this information with your HOA Board, please e-mail rclements@arda.org

Visit www.responsibleexit.com to learn more.