Both of our major political parties have missed what seems so obvious. One says that we need more tax cuts to strengthen the economy. This is correct. The problem is that they are not willing to also make serious budget cuts. That party has spent more than any previous administration. The other political party wants to expand federal government by spending more of our money by raising taxes. The first plan helps the economy in the short run but not in the long term. The second is an even worse disaster I think.

Read more on Cutting Budgets and Taxes…

Jennifer Roback Morse takes a look at The War Between the State and the Family, a book that examines some of the family unfriendly social policies of the United Kingdom. The state, she finds, is in the process of atomizing the family into a loose association of persons with easily separated relationships. “Decomposing society into nothing but a collection of unattached individuals has been destructive of individuals and society alike,” Morse writes.

Read more on Government Divides, Families Unite – Pope Leo XIII saw it coming…

A contingent from Austria that attended last year’s Acton University produced a video on their experiences:

Read more on Austrians at Acton University 2006…

There are details about how you can sponsor a child to receive an education at the new Christian Primary School in Kabala, Sierra Leone at the project’s blog. The school is an effort pursued by Fraser Valley Christian High School in Surrey, British Columbia, in conjunction with Christian Extension Services in Sierra Leone.

Read more on Sponsor a Child’s Education…

There are two new items that should be noted in the Acton Bookshoppe. The first is The Call of the Entrepreneur DVD which is now available for pre-order. The DVD is not expected to ship until the fall but you can start lining up for one of the first copies right now.

Read more on New Bookshoppe Items…

Commentators call it “The Religion Test.” What does it mean when the Constitution says there should be no religious test for holding office in the United States? Historically it has plainly meant that no candidate, be they a Quaker, a Baptist, a Pentecostal or a Mormon can be barred from office because of their religion. The question is once again on the table with the serious candidacy of Mitt Romney for the presidency. And many who are concerned about Romney’s faith are evangelicals. There is a strange joining of prejudice here as the secular left seems to agree, to some extent at least, with some in the religious right.

Read more on The (Civil) Religion Test…

The John Ryan Institute at the University of St. Thomas announces its 2008 symposium in the series Catholic Social Thought and Management, to be on the topic of “Business Education at Catholic Universities.” These biennial conferences are large affairs encompassing a refreshingly diverse array of viewpoints. The conferences page is here, though the link to the 2008 event seems not to be operational yet.

Read more on Business Ed in Catholic Universities Conference…

New postal rates went into effect yesterday, but the biggest impact of the new rates and policies hasn’t yet been felt.

A new set of policies governing the delivery of magazines through the mail has been postponed until July. That’s a bit of needed good news for small magazines that will face rather hefty price increases.

Read more on Changing the Shape of Magazine Delivery…

This week’s ACT 3 weekly essay, “Why Christians Ought to Make a Difference in the Marketplace,” by David L. Bahnsen:

I have heard it said in my life on more than one occasion that God sent his Son to save souls. Indeed, for evangelicals, that is certainly true. However, for the professing believer who talks of a deep concern for individual souls my question and answer will either be a gigantic disappointment or it may be a true experience of edification. While all Christian men and women ought to be interested in the salvation of individual souls—God is truly in the redemption business—I contend that, as Leslie Newbigin masterfully argues in his gem of a book, Foolishness to the Greeks, the souls of individuals have been spiritually ravaged as a result of our complete surrender of the key institutions and spheres within our society. Newbigin wrote this a generation ago in reference to the inexplicable surrender of modern science and advanced analytical philosophy to secular humanists. His argument actually simple—in a short-term effort to prioritize souls over spheres and people over institutions, we actually lost both. My belief is that where Newbigin was astutely right decades ago, today’s sphere of surrender from the covenant community of God has actually taken place in the marketplace of our day.

Read the whole article at the ACT 3 website here.

Read more on Christians in the Marketplace…

There once was a time when it was, in practice at least, more difficult and costly to copy videocassette tapes than it was music tapes, compact discs, or computer programs. That, in part, is the justification for how the US Copyright code treats music and computer software differently than, say, movies.

Read more on Do unto Music as is Done unto Movies…