As occurrences of preventable diseases increase and the debt deepens, some look to “sin taxes” as an easy to solution to both problems. Thirty-three states have even gone as far as to implement a soda tax in an attempt to curb obesity. At first glance sin taxes seem to be a good idea, but they can actually cause more harm than good.

Read more on A Rapidly Expanding ‘Sindustry’…

Guidelines for nonprofits are often misunderstood, says Dimitri Cavalli, and they are sometimes misrepresented by those seeking to quiet churches:

Every so often, there are calls for the federal government to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches. The most common arguments made for taxing churches are that exemptions deny the government important sources of revenue to pay its bills, and that many churches (usually the ones that continue to teach traditional sexuality morality such as the Catholic, Evangelical, and Mormon churches) often abuse their tax-exempt status by violating IRS guidelines that prohibit them from engaging in political activity. The chronic obsession with the activities of the churches in the public square has obscured the fact that they are only a part of the overall nonprofit sector. According to data collected by the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), there are over 1.5 million registered nonprofit organizations (with combined total assets of nearly $5.7 trillion as of August 2012) in the United States today—many of which are nonreligious institutions and organizations that, like churches, seek to influence public policy despite being tax-exempt.

Read more on Why are Churches Singled Out for Their Tax-Exempt Status?…

What is the “fiscal cliff”?

The term “fiscal cliff”, which is believed to have originated in Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, refers to the substantial changes to tax and spending policies that are scheduled to automatically take effect in January 2013. The changes are intended to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit.

What are the tax and spending policies that will change?

Several major tax provisions are set to expire at year’s end:
Read more on The FAQs: What is the Fiscal Cliff?…

Below is an excerpt from a 1925 Washington Post editorial on President Calvin Coolidge’s Inaugural Address. The comments speak directly to the moral arguments Coolidge was making for a free economy. It is the kind of moral thinking about markets and taxes we desperately need today from our national leaders.

Read more on Calvin Coolidge, Excessive Taxation, and the Moral Economy…

The Goldwater Institute has released a new study showing that states with a larger share of entrepreneurs do a better job at reducing poverty than states with fewer entrepreneurs.

There is a strong connection between a state’s rate of entrepreneurship and declines in poverty. Statistical analysis of all 50 states indicates that states with a larger share of entrepreneurs had bigger declines in poverty. In fact, comparing states during the last economic boom—from 2001 to 2007—data show that for every 1 percentage point increase in the rate of entrepreneurship in a state, there is a 2 percent decline in the poverty rate.

Read more on Want to Lower Poverty Rates? Increase Entrepreneurship…

After every electoral defeat—whether suffered by Republicans or Democrats—a period of hand-wringing and soul-searching inevitably develops in the days and weeks after the election. Journalists and politicians take to print to explain “What went wrong” and “Here’s what should be done differently.” Although the solutions are almost always what the pundits were saying before the election, the exercise in self-reflection is, on the whole, a much needed corrective. But too often the advice tends to be of the always terrible, “We should be more like the party that won.”

A prime example is an article today by Wick Allison, publisher of The American Conservative. Allison voted for Obama in 2008 and hinted that he would do so this year too. So it probably shouldn’t be surprising that that his economic solution looks similar to what President Obama would endorse.

Allison says that the “Republican Party can appeal to ‘Judeo-Christian values’ as long as the sun shines and their voices hold out. But they’ve abandoned the most basic moral value of all: fairness.” While he may have a valid point, Allison muddies the argument by his misunderstanding of both taxation and fairness:

Read more on Envy Won’t Save the GOP—or America…

This week I wrote about the dignity of paying taxes (among other ways of contributing to social flourishing). But as we know, not all taxes are created equal. Indeed, as Antony Davies and James Harrigan write this week at US News, “Politicians are in the business of buying votes with tax breaks and sweetheart deals for their preferred constituencies, and they have to offset these deals by taxing disfavored constituencies at increased rates. The longer this game is played, the more convoluted the tax code becomes.”

As I argued previously at Capital Commentary, this amounts to a kind of back door social engineering (as well as playing favorites, picking winners, and so on). The fundamental purpose of taxation is not to buy votes and give preference to lobbies and special constituencies. Instead, as I write, “The point of taxation is to raise funds to enable the government to fulfill its moral, political, and social responsibilities.” Such a view is ultimately at odds with a Utilitarian theory, which considers taxation to be a tool rather used “to maximize overall well-being in society.” Matthew Weinzierl argues for greater attention to a theory of Equal Sacrifice, which on Weinzierl’s account “assumes individuals have the first claim to their output, and that they voluntarily agree to form societies that collect taxes in order to purchase public goods.”
Read more on Sixpence to the Good (of Government)…

Jim Wallis and a number of other Christians involved in politics are trying to gain attention for the question, “What would Jesus cut?” The answer to this question is supposed to be as obvious as it is in other moral contexts. For example, would Jesus lie about the useful life of a refrigerator he was selling for Best Buy? No way. Would he bully a kid into giving away his lunch money? Not a chance. Would you find him taking in the show at a strip club on interstate 40 in Arkansas? Unlikely to the extreme.

Read more on A Response to ‘What Would Jesus Cut?’…

Michael Kinsley has a column up at The Politico in which he claims to debunk a series of Reagan myths. The one that annoys me the most is the one that is obviously and clearly incorrect and at the same time gets the least explanation from Kinsley. Here it is:

Read more on Don’t Knock the Laffer Curve…

Catching up on some recent Acton commentaries. We welcome a new writer, John Addison Teevan, who is director of the Prison Extension Program at Grace College. He also teaches economics and Bible courses at the Winona Lake, Ind., school. This column was published Dec. 29. Sign up for the free, weekly email newsletter Acton News & Commentary here.

Read more on A Tithe for Uncle Sam…