New Liberal Highlight: Laura Duffy
Laura joined the Center for New Liberalism in 2021, and she currently serves on CNL's steering committee, its subcommittee to promote diversity, and the DC chapter's membership team. In her day job, Laura is a policy analyst with Progressive Policy Institute's Center for Funding America's Future, which develops budget policy proposals to promote economic growth, public investment, and intergenerational equity. In her free time, Laura enjoys running, cooking, and listening to podcasts on long walks.
What drove you to the Center for New Liberalism, and what does it mean to you to be a New Liberal?
I would be lying if I didn't admit that part of the reason I was first drawn to the Center for New Liberalism (or, the Neoliberal Project, as it was called in 2018 when I first discovered the movement) was the great meme culture on Twitter and Reddit. But what made me identify with the community, and then officially become a member a few years later, was the group's strong belief that we can have both capitalism and a strong safety net. Prior to joining, I always felt torn between my libertarian-leaning belief in the free market and my left-leaning belief that we need some redistribution to fix generational inequities and create more equal opportunities.
So I was incredibly grateful to find a community that advocates for both principles (as well as a lot of other good ideas). To me, being a new liberal means 1) valuing people's individual autonomy so long as they're not harming others, 2) believing in the power of evidence-driven policy and markets to generate prosperity for present and future generations, and 3) being compassionate to make sure no one is left behind.
What You recently started a new role at PPI as a policy analyst at the Center for Funding America’s Future. Can you tell us a little more about that, and why it’s important for young people to care about fiscal responsibility?
Most of what I've been doing as a policy analyst is helping PPI develop our comprehensive answer to the question "What should our ideal US budget look like?" In this, we're not aiming necessarily for political feasibility (i.e. can this pass in the current Congress) but more to reorient the Democratic Party towards new liberal ideas--our working test of whether an idea makes the cut is "if every Congressperson were like Scott Peters, could we get this passed?" With this relaxed constraint, I get a lot of freedom to learn about public policy and come up with new tax and spending reforms, which is a lot of fun!
To the second part of the question, the US simultaneously faces the pressures of having an aging population, higher interest rates, and insufficient tax revenue to finance its large public spending. This means that, in a couple of decades, paying for the the debt we're taking out now is going to require higher taxes, dampen economic growth, and limit the government's ability to investment in education, science, and infrastructure. And since this burden is going to disproportionately fall on younger generations, we have a huge interest in making sure we elect Congresspeople who put us on a more fiscally responsible path.
