In their dueling speeches last week, President Joe Biden and Republican Sen. Tim Scott agreed on a few things while disagreeing on many. The headlines after Biden spoke to Congress, and Scott responded for Republicans, were mostly about expensive new government programs and racism.

Still, if you listened carefully, one of the most important debates between Biden and Scott, indeed between liberals and conservatives more broadly, is the question of how to create opportunity for people. Whether government creates opportunity, as Biden argues, or gets in the way of individual opportunity, as Scott maintains, is perhaps the fundamental political question of the day.