Do you agree with leaders like Al Sharpton and Marc Morial who believe that such policies are necessary?
I certainly agree that President Obama and the federal government in general should do whatever it can to help those who are most in need. I think the question is, when it comes to employment opportunities for African Americans in particular and all people in general: what’s the best way to do that? There are alternative schools of thought. One way that you can do that is by making the economy more robust. At the end of the day, any jobs that are going to be sustainable are going to come from the private sector. So policies that can help achieve that goal I think are important policies. We should be having a debate about which policies are more important not a debate about whether or not we need policies. I think we all agree, we need to do whatever we can do. So let’s talk about the doing specifically. What do you hope your African American Economic survey will accomplish? One of the most important things that I think the survey does is that it brings the level of the conversation to
