“We have to pass the bill so that you find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Nancy Pelosi was the House Speaker when she made those remarks about Obamacare at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties. At the time, Pelosi was mocked for not understanding what was in the legislation she was supporting. But the reality is that with all legislation that is considered by Congress, we almost never really know what is in it until it has been passed.

If you took civics class in high school (or just watched Schoolhouse Rock), you likely know how a bill becomes a law. But what most people don’t understand is the process by which a law becomes policy.

We often think that the judiciary is the branch of government responsible for interpreting the law. But in reality most interpretation is done by the executive branch, through the various regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies handle administrative law, primarily by codifying and enforcing rules and regulations. When Congress passes a new law it usually goes to a regulatory agency to determine how the law will be put in place.
Read more on You Don’t Just Elect a President, You Elect a Regulatory Regime…

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, writing on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is reaching out to members of Congress regarding religious liberty and the HHS Mandate. In a sharply-worded letter, he reminds members of Congress that there is a clear history of protecting the rights of those with religious and/or moral objections to paying for services such as abortion. He then goes on to address the so-called “war on women”:

Read more on ‘A New, More Grudging Attitude’: More on the HHS Mandate…

Now that we know what the fiscal cliff is all about, what are the plans for dealing with it? Below are the four approaches that have been proposed:

The Democrats’ Plan

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner offered the White House’s fiscal cliff proposal to Republicans in the last week of November. Although the proposal wasn’t released to the public, news reports say it was basically a reprise of Obama’s most recent budget request and contained the following items:

• End the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000. The result would be $1.6 trillion in new taxes over 10 years, $160 billion a year.
• Cuts to Medicare and other entitlements over 10 years equal to $400 million, or $40 million a year.
• Additional stimulus spending of $50 billion.
• Authority to allow President Obama to to raise the debt limit without asking Congress in order to prevent “fiscal cliff”-style triggers from being put in place in the future.
• The White House also counts “savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” in their savings tally, even though no one has proposed maintaining war spending over the next decade at the current rate.

Reception: The Republicans rejected Obama’s plan but offered to let it be voted on in the Senate. However, yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) blocked a vote on the president’s proposal.
Read more on The FAQs: The Fiscal Cliff Proposals…

Obviously many people are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling today. The decision was rather surprising for a number of legal and political reasons.

Writing about the HHS mandate in an Acton commentary in January, Dr. Donald P. Condit pointed to the moral threat that his health care legislation poses. Nothing has changed with today’s Supreme Court ruling. Condit wrote:

With the passing of time, it has become painfully obvious how relativistic and clouded are this administration’s sense of ethics.  The subsequent threat to our liberty is crystal clear and faith leaders representing diverse traditions are speaking out against the White House’s assault on religious freedom in the most forceful way.

It is obvious that  ‘Obamacare’ strikes against every aspect of Acton’s Core Principles. You can see more related to that point on Acton’s Health Care page.

Read more on Initial Thoughts on the ‘Obamacare’ Decision…

A recent study by Millennial Branding reveals that

“Owner” is the fifth most popular job title [listed on Facebook] for Gen-Y [i.e., Millennials] because they are an entrepreneurial generation. Even though most of their companies won’t succeed, they are demonstrating an unprecedented entrepreneurial spirit.

The study does not speculate on the causes of this upsurge in enterprise and creativity among 18-29 year-olds, but no doubt “Mother Necessity” has her hand in it somewhere. Our country and world are facing serious financial crises and offering us little assurance of any positive resolution before we are handed the reins of the world. This last summer’s gridlock in Congress over our looming default was a case-in-point, and the Eurozone crisis continues to cast a gloomy shadow on our economic future.

Read more on Millennials Embrace the Entrepreneurial Vocation…

The fall 2011 issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has now been finalized and will be heading to print. It is a bit overdue, but this issue is one of our largest ever, and it includes a number of noteworthy features on the special theme issue topic “Modern Christian Social Thought.” As I outline in the editorial for this issue (PDF), 2011 marked a number of significant anniversaries, including the 120th anniversaries of Rerum Novarum and the First Christian Social Congress in Amsterdam.

Read more on Preview of JMM 14.2: Modern Christian Social Thought…

Well, that wasn’t a serious title: After an hour of reflection, I am forced to admit that pizza qua pizza is a morally neutral proposition. We might have thought it was politically neutral too, until Congress decided this week that pizza sauce still counts as a serving of vegetables in public school lunch lines.

Read more on Pizza qua Vegetable: Acton Finds the Moral Dimension…

Congress insults our intelligence when it tells us that Chinese currency games are to blame for our trade deficit with that country and unemployment in our own. Legislators might as well propose a fleet of men-o’-war to navigate the globe and collect all its gold: economics is not a zero-sum game.

Read more on Trade with China, or Blockade Their Ports?…

Faith leaders protest budget cuts (at U.S. Capitol, not NCC meeting)

A “budget is a moral document,” right?

The Institute on Religion & Democracy reports that following the loss of a major donor, the National Council of Churches (NCC) finds itself “closer than ever before to the precipice” of financial collapse. The progressive/liberal church coalition, comprised largely of mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches, is running out of dough. IRD’s Barton Gingerich:

Read more on National Council of Churches ‘balancing the budget on the backs of the poor’?…

President Obama wants his American Jobs Act passed immediately. You know this already—he made sure he delivered that message in his speech: “Pass this jobs plan right away” was his refrain. President Obama has definitely not read the Federalist Papers in a while. If he had, he would not be encouraging Congress to pass half-a-trillion dollars of new spending at a moment’s notice.

Read more on Jobs Act Usurps Liberty, Christian Charity…