Federal policymakers visit school
 

During an informal visit at the LBJ School, House Minority Whip David Bonior, shown here with Professor Elspeth Rostow, met with the dean and various faculty members.

photo by María de la Luz Martínez

A number of federal policymakers visited the LBJ School this year to engage in discussions with various segments of the LBJ School community.

They included House Minority Whip David Bonior; General Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; George Muñoz, president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation; former U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers; U.S. Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education A. Lee Fritschler; and Armando A. Gonzalez, deputy commissioner of Region 6 of the Social Security Administration.

Some of the talks, which covered a variety of issues, are highlighted here.

The War on Drugs
Barry R. McCaffrey, who heads the nation's effort to win the war on drugs, discussed his office's drug control strategy during a lecture that took place in early August.

According to McCaffrey, the key to reducing drug abuse over time lies in lowering demand for illicit drugs through massive education efforts. "No amount of enforcement is going to have an effect on the number of people who abuse drugs," he said. "The only way to have an effect is to educate kids early and minimize their exposure to drugs."

He pointed out that the 55 percent increase in funding for education efforts over the past several years has already begun to have an effect in the United States. The rate of chronic drug abuse has declined since the peak years in the 1970s, he said, and there is evidence that this decline will continue.

On the negative side, McCaffrey said the supply of laboratory-produced narcotics is on the increase, and the United States is a major supplier. He predicted that in 10 years crack cocaine and heroin--the drugs currently in highest demand--will have been replaced in popularity by methamphetamines and other manufactured drugs. "If we're going to keep grinding down the rates of abuse, we have to keep increasing our efforts to prevent people from ever starting to use drugs," he said.

Globalization and Privatization
George Muñoz, president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, spoke to a packed audience in the Student Lounge in January.

Muñoz discussed policy issues surrounding globalization and privatization in developing countries, such as whether foreign investment is a helpful or harmful influence and the extent to which governments should be involved.

Technology transfer may be as important as wages in helping countries improve their standard of living, he said. However, these improvements also depend on people's ability to understand and apply basic business concepts--concepts that may not be part of their cultural heritage.

He suggested that the new global economy will require Americans to work with, rather than against, the cultural norms of the countries in which they do business.

Social Security Reform
While most speakers came to the LBJ School to share their expertise and views with students, the opposite was also true. In October, Armando Gonzalez, deputy regional commissioner of the Social Security Administration, was briefed on the need for social security reform by students enrolled in a policy development class taught by Professors Jacqueline Angel and Victoria Rodríguez.

During the exercise, competing groups of students--speaking on behalf of special interest groups with vested interests in social security reform--outlined their proposals. The proposals were based on information provided to the students by the real-life interest groups.

A panel that included Arnold Garcia, Austin American-Statesman editorial page editor, and Jim McDaniel, district manager for the Social Security Administration's Austin office, evaluated the presentations, along with Gonzalez.

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