Panel Discussion: The Past and Future of Entitlement Programs

Host Dan Loney leads a discussion on Entitlement Programs – first we look into the past at where these programs came from with Julian Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and Author of “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society,” and Edward Berkowitz, Professor of History and of Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University’s Columbian College of Arts& Sciences. Then, we look at the future of these programs under the current Trump Administration post-Republican Tax Bill with Tim Smeeding, Professor of Public Affairs and Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Author of “SNAP Matters: How Food Stamps Affect Health and Well Being,” and Gary Burtless, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. We examine some of the potential effects of big cuts to programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, among others, on Knowledge at Wharton.