Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
February 05, 2020
A report on the global impact of think tanks has ranked the Acton Institute among the world’s most influential thought leaders.
The University of Pennsylvania released its “2019 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report” last Friday. Continue Reading...
January 31, 2020
Brexit restores the UK’s national character
After a bitter, three-and-a-half year political battle, the UK will leave the European Union at 11 p.m. on Friday, January 31, 2020. Brexit returns control of British political institutions, immigration laws, regulatory standards, and free trade policies to its citizens. Continue Reading...
January 30, 2020
This policy would destroy $11.5 trillion of U.S. wealth
A presidential season is a time of policies, proposals, and promises. All will guarantee they will increase national wealth and well-being, but history and rational analysis show that some reforms will hurt the very voters who support them. Continue Reading...
January 29, 2020
Commentary: The court case that could end 150 years of anti-Catholic law
This week’s Acton Commentary focuses on a Supreme Court case that could strike down an eighteenth-century statute, borne of anti-Catholic animus, that now locks poor children in underperforming schools. A clear understanding of economics and solid Supreme Court precedent could sweep this relic of anti-Catholic discrimination, known as the Blaine amendment, into the past. Continue Reading...
January 28, 2020
Video: E.B. White’s forgotten story about the tyranny of good intentions
E.B. White, the author of Charlotte’s Web and co-author of The Elements of Style, once wrote a story that aptly demonstrates the folly of central planning. White, a Maine farmer who wrote for The New Yorker and Harper’s, saw the story turned into an animated short, which he narrated 36 years after its publication. Continue Reading...
January 28, 2020
Will Michael Bloomberg enact ‘tikkun olam’?
Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg recently tweeted that his political program grows out of a Jewish religious teaching giving him the “responsibility” to use the government to “‘repair the world’ in the tradition of Tikkun Olam.” Continue Reading...
January 27, 2020
The flawed statistic that lets AOC inflate the number of poor Americans
The United States has experienced years of record-breaking stock markets and unmatched levels of employment. Yet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presents her country as a dystopia in equal parts Dickensian and Hobbesian, where the wealthy few ground the poor masses into the dust. Continue Reading...
January 24, 2020
Fact facts: President Trump’s new guidance on religion and prayer in schools
When students go back to school Monday morning, they will have more protections to exercise their constitutional freedom of religion than at any time in decades. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued updated federal guidelines requiring public schools to respect the religious liberty of students and teachers – or lose federal funding. Continue Reading...
January 24, 2020
‘Medicare for All’ is not pro-life
President Donald Trump made history on Friday when he became the first president to address the March for Life in person. As I watched the moment unfold, I was taken aback by a poster I saw held by one of the attendees: “Medicare for All. Continue Reading...
January 23, 2020
Global wealth inequality has been falling: Report
“Economic inequality is out of control,” according to Oxfam, which releases a dire-sounding report about inequality every year on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The 2020 edition faults the supposed “dominance of neoliberal economics, which values deregulation and reduction in public spending,” and the alleged existence of “monopolies,” for “accelerating economic inequality.” Continue Reading...