New Video: HHS Mandate and Religious Liberty

What would Diedrich Bonhoeffer have to say about the HHS mandate? Eric Metaxas–best selling author of the biographies on William Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer:Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy gives us some insight in this 2 minute video that explains the real issue behind the HHS Mandate: Religious liberty He’s joined by economist Jennifer Roback Morse, a Catholic economist and founder and president of the Ruth Institute. Continue Reading...

Radio Free Acton: The Coolidge Podcast

Marc Vander Maas and I just produced a podcast on Calvin Coolidge for Radio Free Acton. I have been doing a lot of research on the 30th president this year and have had the privilege of speaking about Coolidge in a few different settings. Continue Reading...

Food Trucks and Free Enterprise

The ongoing debate about food trucks here in Grand Rapids took a step forward this week, as this past Tuesday the city commission “voted unanimously to amend its zoning ordinance so that food trucks can operate on private property for extended periods of time.” Continue Reading...

The Demand Side of College Education

One of the most worrisome economic troubles coming down-the-pipe is the “student debt bubble” which many argue is caused by too many students seeking degrees in higher education as the costs of tuition increase. Continue Reading...

Summers on Catholics in the American Civil War

Mark Summers, a historian in Virginia, wrote two articles for Religion & Liberty on faith issues in the American Civil War. Summers wrote about the evangelical revival that swept through the Southern armies and then in a subsequent 2011 issue focused on the Catholic Church in the Civil War. Continue Reading...

Care Bears are Cheaper

I have recently written on the moral implications of growing tuition costs and the resulting student loan debt (here). One factor I did not explore in depth was the reason for rising tuition costs, which, adjusted for inflation, have more than doubled since the 1980s. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: Financial Fiddling while the Euro Burns

On National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg examines the push for a “transaction tax” to solve some of the fiscal problems in the European Union. The move would, Gregg explains, “levy a tax on any transaction on financial instruments (securities, loans, deposits, derivatives, and various asset classes) between banks, hedge funds, insurance businesses, investment companies, and other financial organizations whenever one contracting party is located in the EU.” Continue Reading...