Coolidge and pitching great Walter Johnson.
Calvin Coolidge is ripe for national recognition and his wisdom is being sought out perhaps now more than ever. If you’re a voracious reader of commentary and columns you’ve noticed his common sense adages are being unearthed at a rapid pace. Most of the credit and recognition for the Coolidge revival goes to Amity Shlaes. Her newly released and splendid biography Coolidge can’t be recommended enough. (Full review on the PowerBlog forthcoming)
It makes little, or really no sense for Americans to fork over more taxes without a balanced federal budget and seeing some fiscal responsibility out of Washington. The fact that the United States Senate hasn’t passed a budget in well over three years doesn’t mean we aren’t spending money, we are spending more than ever. The last time the Senate passed a budget resolution was April of 2009.
Read more on Raising Taxes without a Balanced Budget is Insane…
Quoting former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Mitt Romney was right to make the point that the federal deficit is the biggest national security threat to our country. Romney has also been critical of President Obama for failing to resolve significant cuts to defense spending under the Budget Control Act. Both political parties agree these cuts would be a disaster and they were implemented primarily as a motivational mechanism for real budget reform.
Read more on Presidential Debate, Defense Spending, and Military Readiness…
“I was Hungry and You . . . Called your Congressman” is a good report from Kristin Rudolph over at the IRD blog. The article covers Bread for the World president David Beckmann’s comments to a group of “emergent Christians” in Washington D.C.
Read more on The Religious Left’s Hunger for Big Government…
Napp Nazworth, a reporter for Christian Post, interviewed Rev. Robert A. Sirico about House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget plan, “The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal.” Nazworth asked Rev. Sirico, Acton’s president and co-founder, to talk about how closely Ryan’s plan lines up with Catholic social teaching, as the Republican budget chair has claimed, and to speak to criticisms of the plan. “A group of about 60 politically liberal Christian leaders wrote a letter taking exception to Ryan’s comments, calling it ‘morally indefensible,’” the reporter wrote. “In an interview with The Christian Post, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) also said the Ryan budget is in opposition to Catholic teaching.”
Read more on Interview: Rev. Sirico on the Ryan Budget Plan…
On Forbes, Doug Bandow surveys how both the religious left and religious right are using explicit faith teachings and moral arguments in the federal budget and spending battles:
Does God really insist that no program ever be eliminated and no expenditure ever be reduced if one poor person somewhere benefits? Perhaps that is the long lost 11th Commandment. Detailed in the long lost book of Hezekiah.
Read more on Is God a Shakedown Artist for the Welfare State?…
In “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich” investor Warren Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest men, makes a case for upping the tax rate on the “mega-rich” in America. In a response published on National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg observes that “this is a broken record that Mr. Buffett has taken to re-playing over the past five years.” He points out that the U.S. tax system is already heavily progressive (no pun intended) and that the label “mega-rich” may not be as obvious as Buffett would like us to believe:
The recent budget battle may have sparked new questions for Americans to answer, such as what is poverty and who falls under such a classification? Furthermore, due to its massive debt, government may need a limited role in helping the poor. While Christians who stood behind the Circle of Protection advocated for the protection of programs they claim that benefit the poor, other Christians looked at the debate differently arguing for another way to help the poor. However, despite how we decide to help the poor, is our understanding of what it means to be poor misleading?
In my 2009 commentary addressing the nation’s debt crisis I included words from Admiral James B. Stockdale. The full quote comes from an essay on public virtue from the book Thoughts of A Philosophical Fighter Pilot. In his 1988 publication, Stockdale declared:
Does the Circle of Protection actually help the poor? What may be surprising to many of those who are advocating for the protection of just about any welfare program is that these may not alleviate poverty but only redistribute wealth. Rev. Sirico explained in an interview with the National Catholic Register how the discussion should be about wealth creation, not wealth redistribution:
Read more on Rev. Sirico: Wealth Creation, Not Wealth Redistribution…
