Are billionaires evil?

Criticizing billionaires has become a popular cultural trend, based on anti-rich sentiment that was recently exacerbated by a ProPublica report that leaked the tax returns of the 25 wealthiest Americans. The report’s findings were interesting but not particularly surprising, mostly confirming the long-held speculation that the ultra-rich don’t pay taxes proportional to their levels of wealth and frequently use legal avenues to shield their earnings from the government’s fingertips. Continue Reading...

The moral weight of taxation

As Congress works on a $6 trillion spending bill that would be funded by higher taxes and increasing the national debt, Americans should be asking themselves: When is taxation morally permissible? Continue Reading...

From the Cold War to China, human flourishing is what really matters

A second Cold War has been brewing between global superpowers. The recent G-7 summit was merely the latest incident in the struggle for global hegemony between China and the U.S. The seven western powers who met for the summit released a statement condemning the Chinese government for its treatment of the Uyghur people, as well as its crackdowns in Hong Kong and lack of transparency in handling the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. Continue Reading...

A free-market ‘green revolution’

Mankind has an unquestionable obligation to protect the environment. As Pope Benedict XVI explained in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, “the environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations, and towards humanity as a whole.” Continue Reading...

The moral deficit of inflationary spending

Spending! Relief! Infrastructure Investment! Build Back Better! These are words and sayings that have been bandied about throughout the past year. Anyone with a basic interest in the news cycle is bound to have heard that the federal government has proposed plans to spend trillions of dollars. Continue Reading...