Because there’s nothing sweet about it.

As the 2012 Farm Bill moves through Capitol Hill, the policy debates are ramping up. The bill, projected to seriously cut the deficit, has garnered bipartisan support thus far, but will likely meet more resistance in the House. Whether or not the 2012 Farm Bill will cut its projected $23 billion dollars is subjective. Fluctuating crop prices and the extent to which the weather cooperates (pray for rain) will determine that. What is certain, however, is that under the the proposed legislation, Americans will continue to pay too much for sugar. As it stands now, the bill keeps the existing sugar program entirely intact. This benefits the 61,000 Americans employed in the sugar industry and works to the detriment of taxpayers, sugar farmers in the developing world, and the 988,000 U.S. employees in industries that rely on sugar.

Read more on U.S. sugar policy invites bad jokes…

In response to the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare’a individual mandate, National Review Online launched a symposium — a roundup of commentary — which posed the following question: “What’s next for both conservatives and the Republican party on health-care reform?” Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg contributed this analysis:

Read more on Samuel Gregg on the Supreme Court and the Individual Mandate…

In a follow up interview to “Is Capitalism Immoral?,” Joseph E. Gorra on the Patheos Evangelical channel talks with Rev. Robert A. Sirico, Acton Institute president and co-founder, about the publication of his new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Gorra begins the interview by observing that “within Western societies today there appears to be a kind of fact/value dichotomy that operates as an assumption in much of our discourse, where questions of ‘economics’ (and the sciences in general) are in the category of knowledge and facts and therefore tend to trump questions of theology.”

Read more on Interview: Rev. Sirico responds to ‘Does Capitalism Promote Greed?’…

David Paul Deavel has a fine review of Rev. Robert Sirico’s Defending the Free Market over at National Review Online.

Deavel notes:

What makes Sirico’s defense of a free economy all the stronger is his consistent acknowledgment that a functioning free market neither immanentizes the eschaton, making heaven on earth, nor makes a society virtuous or whole. Freedom of economic (and other) action is not the goal of society — acting virtuously in freedom is. And the intellectual and spiritual resources for virtuous action do not inhere in markets themselves. In his chapter on why state-sponsored health care is not really a compassionate answer, he writes against “the seduction that the power of economic freedom can in itself generate a system of health care marked by honesty and love.” Economic freedom must be accompanied by other kinds of freedom, particularly religious, and by people thinking about their duties toward the sick, the dying, and the poor. Homo economicus may be a useful abstraction for certain economics problems, but the human capital of love, loyalty, and sacrifice is the kind of capital required for a successful capitalism.

Read the entire review at National Review Online.

Read more on Deavel’s Review of Defending the Free Market…

On the drive over to Acton University this morning I heard an argument on the radio about how the economy would have been fixed if only the dollar amount of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 would have been doubled. What a sad statement to pin your hope to in order to fix the American economy. That argument is unlikely to be uttered at Acton University. Fixing economic problems and lifting up the human condition is not measured by dollars here. Present at Acton University is the strong sense that solving complex problems and failures in society are attainable outside of centralization or a materialistic worldview.

Read more on Truth and Blessings at Acton University…

On the Patheos Evangelical channel, Joseph E. Gorra talks to Rev. Robert A. Sirico, Acton Institute president and co-founder, about the publication of his new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Gorra frames the interview with this question: “Countless detractors over the years have argued that capitalism is intrinsically immoral. Is it true?”

Read more on Interview: Rev. Sirico responds to ‘Is Capitalism Immoral?’…

In The Daily Caller, Rev. Robert A. Sirico is interviewed by Ginni Thomas about a graphic in the March/April edition of the radical magazine Adbusters mocks people who throw off all moral restraint in the pursuit of wealth.

Adbusters is an anti-capitalist magazine founded by Marxist Kalle Lasn and was instrumental in fueling the similarly anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement.

“You notice that they are precisely the ones who don’t tell us what personal responsibilities we have,” Rev. Sirico said. “They make abstract all of our obligations: It’s the obligation of the people, the obligation of the state, the obligation of some general mass of something-or-other.”

Read “Rev. Robert Sirico on the cultural left’s lack of ethics” in The Daily Caller. To see the extended 27-minute version of the video, go here.

Get your copy of Rev. Sirico’s new book Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy today. Read more on Video: Rev. Sirico on Mammon and the cultural left…

Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico continues to promote Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy on radio and television across the country; today’s roundup of media includes two radio interviews on west coast radio stations, starting with host Brian Sussman on the KSFO Morning Show in San Francisco, California:

Read more on Audio: More on ‘Defending the Free Market’…

If you haven’t ordered your copy of Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy, what are you waiting for? For those who still need some convincing, Rev. Robert Sirico continues to make the media rounds, and we continue to bring you the highlights.

Read more on Defending the Free Market: More Media Coverage…

On his Koinonia blog, Rev. Gregory Jensen reviews Rev. Robert Sirico’s new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy.

Jensen:

“Daring though the argument is, especially for a Catholic priest, it is also essential that it be made since for too many people (including business people), free market economic theory and policies are little more than a justification for greed. While not denying the excesses of capitalism and real sins of capitalists, Fr Sirico wisely doesn’t allow sin to have the last word. Rather, and like St Augustine who inspired his own spiritual journey, the helps us see the goodness hidden beneath the distorting effects of moral failure.

Read more on Defending the Free Market review: More than Mere Economics…