The newest edition of The Commonwealth, the members' magazine of The Commonwealth Club of California, is in the mail at this moment. If you're a member, watch your mailbox for the October/November 2010 issue, which is filled with interesting people and thought-provoking and even controversial ideas.
The cover story features a bipartisan duo of former U.S. secretaries of state: Madeleine Albright and George Shultz, who discuss with veteran journalist Marvin Kalb the most important issues facing our country today and tomorrow. Other articles include author and Iran expert Stephen Kinzer discussing the relationship between Iran and the United States; Anglican priest Kapya Kaoma on America's export of its culture wars to Africa; author Anna Quindlen discussing family with writer Ellen Sussman; an all-star panel (Laura Tyson, Paul Saffo, Nancy Pfund, Robert Klein, Robert Hertzberg, and Sydnie Kohara) discussing California's economic future; journalist Sebastian Junger on the ground with our troops in Afghanistan; author Nicholas Carr (in conversation with Google's director of research, Peter Norvig) talking about whether the internet is making us stupider; Commonwealth Club President & CEO Dr. Gloria Duffy on financial abuse of the elderly; and we say good-bye to a longtime friend of The Club and a giant of California's modern history, Bill Lane.
If that doesn't keep you occupied for the next month, check out the magazine's calendar of upcoming Club events and start marking your schedule for our great lineup of speakers, travel, and other opportunities in the Bay Area and beyond.
The news last week of the agreement on a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia might have been overshadowed by continuing heat from the health-care reform effort, but it deserves to have its moment in the sun.
There continue to be bipartisan efforts in the United States to push for further -- and even total -- nuclear disarmament.
By way of background, in the video above of a Commonwealth Club event a couple years ago, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Secretary of Defense William Perry make the case for working toward a nuclear-free world.
Here are some reports on the new treaty and its possible impact on the world stage:
The Honorable George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, and his wife, California and San Francisco Chief of Protocol Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, will receive The Commonwealth Club of California's Distinguished Citizen Award.
They will receive the award at the Club’s 22nd Annual Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner, which will take place April 29, 2010, at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The Club is honoring George P. Shultz and Charlotte Mailliard Shultz for their decades of service on the local, regional, national, and international levels.
Leaving the Bay Area where he had served as President of Bechtel Corporation since 1975, George Shultz served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Before that appointment, he served as labor secretary and treasury secretary during the Nixon Administration and as a senior staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers during the Eisenhower administration. Regarded as one of the preeminent political minds of our time, Secretary Shultz played a pivotal role in the most precarious and delicate international issues facing the United States during his day, including the Cold War. In 1989, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Today he offers his insights on global political and economic policy as a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. In 1997 The Commonwealth Club of California honored Secretary Shultz with the Distinguished Citizen Award, along with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry; Secretary Shultz is the only person to receive the Club’s Distinguished Citizen Award twice. The author of five books and numerous academic articles, he has taught at a number of prestigious universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Chicago Graduate School of Business, and Stanford. He earned his Ph.D. in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. He received his B.A. in economics from Princeton University in 1942, joining the US Marine Corps that same year.
Together, the Shultzes constitute a dynamic and accomplished team of devoted San Franciscans. Serving in the volunteer position of chief of protocol for the State of California, it has been Mrs. Shultz’ job since 2004 to promote California on the global stage. To accomplish such a task, she has planned a multitude of events to highlight the many facets of the state’s economic and cultural life, from its technological capabilities and cosmopolitan business hubs, to its environmental diversity and scenic attractions. In her additional role as chief of protocol and director of special events for the City and County of San Francisco, Mrs. Shultz has served seven different mayors of San Francisco in a similar function, organizing, among other events, the visits of numerous foreign dignitaries to the Bay Area. Mrs. Shultz is no stranger to either civic involvement or civic honors. She is widely acknowledged as responsible for having revived the San Francisco Symphony’s Black and White Ball, for which she served as chair in 1982, ’83, ’85 and ’87. Currently she serves on the boards of the San Francisco Ballet, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the War Memorial Performing Arts Center, the World Affairs Council of Northern California, and The Commonwealth Club of California. She has been named the State of California Woman of the Year and received the United Nations Association of San Francisco’s Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Also being honored at the annual celebration are Jack O'Neill, founder and chairman of the board of O’Neill Wetsuits; Pixar Animation Studios' writer and director Brad Bird; and Dr. Bill Rutter, chairman and CEO of Synergenics. As leaders and innovators, these distinguished citizens embody “The Spirit of California” in creative, technological, civic, entrepreneurial, environmental, and, increasingly, global contexts.
Early this week, President Obama made a landmark decision to grant the federal government, through a new office in the FDA, authority to regulate the content, marketing and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Despite his own well-known cigarette habit, he says his intention is to reduce health risks from tobacco and make cigarettes both less accessible and less inviting to young people. The move, aimed at focusing on health wellness and disease prevention, is in line with his much larger health-care plan for America. He made reference to his proposed health-care agenda in his Tuesday, June 23, 2009, news conference.
“This is legislation that must and will be paid for,” said the president. “It will not add to our deficits over the next decade. We will find the money through savings and efficiencies within the health-care system, some of which we’ve already announced.”
President Obama also stated that the government’s reform would work to lower the cost of health care, and he warned that doing otherwise would leave millions more Americans uninsured. He further emphasized that the current state of the health-care system needs drastic change and that “the status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable.”
“So reform is not a luxury,” said President Obama. “It’s a necessity, and I hope Congress will continue to make significant progress on this issue in the weeks ahead.”
The president’s web site outlines his health-care reform package. Among his recommendations, he cites the necessity to reduce the growth of health-care costs for businesses and government, protect families from bankruptcy or debt, and assure affordability for all Americans. He also supports guaranteeing choice of doctors and health plans, investing in preventions and wellness, improving patient safety and quality of care. Moreover, he advocates ending barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Will his changes go far enough, or might they go too far? The Commonwealth Club has heard from a number of health-care advocates, economists, and others seeking to change the system. Zeke Emanuel, chair of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and the brother of Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, spoke to The Club on January 8. (See embedded video below.) Zeke Emanuel urged a roots-and-branches overhaul of the system, but it's not clear that such a change is politically feasible. In his talk, Emanuel said, “Most Americans understand that the system is broken. We understand that we have a problem in this country, and I think it’s very widespread.”
Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the Obama Administration, made the economic case for health-care reform in her June 8 speech at Club headquarters. She shared the president’s vision for reform. She observed, “The overarching goal is to develop a cost-effective health-care system that preserves quality, expands coverage, and ensures choice and security for all Americans.” (See video here.)
More recently, former U.S. Secretary of State and former Secretary of Labor George Shultz and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow John Shoven explained their plan for handling the nation's spiraling social service commitments, specifically health care costs and Social Security. See video below.
--Commonwealth Club Media and Public Relations Department
George Shultz and John Shoven presented their ideas for a reform of Social Security and health care in a featured program last night at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State and former Secretary of Labor, is a noted economist and chairs the Governor of California's Economic Advisory Board. He is co-author, with Shoven, of Putting Our House in Order: A Guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform. Shoven is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and the director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Noting that the goals of health-care reform should include full coverage and would entail subsidy for people unable to get coverage on their own, Shultz then sought to explain their proposals for reforming these two gargantuan social programs and related industries.
The event, underwritten by Koret Foundation Funds, occurred just a few days after President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors chair, Christina Romer, spoke to The Club on the economic aspects of health-care reform. She argued that the costs of not reforming health care in this country would be enormous, but that the savings from doing it would improve the economy in many ways.
To see Shultz and Shoven discuss their ideas, watch this video of their Commonwealth Club event:
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