Welcome to Episode 2 of the Olasky interview, brought to you by listener-supported World Radio.

I'm your host, Jill Nelson.

Today we have another interview from The World Vault.

It's Marvin Olasky's 2012 conversation with author and speaker Arthur Brooks.

Last year, Brooks stepped down as president of the

American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C. Before that 10-year stint at

AEI, he was a professional musician and a professor at Syracuse University. Today, he's a professor of

the practice of public leadership at Harvard Business

School. Here now to talk about this interview is World's Marvin Olasky. Marvin, welcome.

Hi, Joe. Good to be with you.

Well, you've had a chance to get to know Brooks over the years. How would you describe them?

Wow, he's both a nerd and a really cool guy. It's a strange combination of skills,

playing the French horn in Barcelona, then becoming a professorial number cruncher, then a think

tank executive. Who has careers like that? Now, Brooks writes about how the welfare system is

hurting the people it's supposed to help.

And this is something you researched at the street level and wrote about back in the 80s.

Is this what made you interested in Brooks' work or were there other factors in play?

That's really a crucial point.

As long as Republicans or conservatives were complaining about the welfare system and saying,

well, it cost too much or this or that, that didn't get a whole lot of traction because the real

problem with the welfare system is, as Arthur points out, and as I pointed out, it hurts the people

it's supposed to help. In fact, once Arthur was talking with President Obama and the president's jaw dropped when Arthur told him,

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