Month: February 2009

February 17, 2009

PBR: Dangerous Deficit Spending

In response to the question, “What are the moral lessons of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?” One of the gravest moral issues related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is the matter of dangerous deficit spending. Continue Reading...
February 17, 2009

PBR: Something for Nothing

In response to the question, “What are the moral lessons of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?” The ARRA makes clear that we have not learned one great moral lesson: You can’t have something for nothing. Continue Reading...
February 16, 2009

PBR: Do We Need a New New Deal?

In response to the question, “What are the moral lessons of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?” Perhaps the most effective historical trope in pushing through the massive stimulus package on Capitol Hill has been the notion that if only the New Deal of the 1930s hadn’t had to wait more than three years for the election of FDR, the Great Depression might have been avoided. Continue Reading...
February 13, 2009

An Alternative Stimulus

Washington is all atwitter about the “Stimulus,” which is currently being pushed through Congress (without being read by most members). Acton’s own Michelle Muccio has come up with a plan of her own, and did a bit of independent research to see if her proposal would find any support: Continue Reading...
February 13, 2009

PBR: A Mainline Bailout

In response to the question, “What is the future of the faith-based initiative?” Under the Obama administration, the faith-based initiative will increasingly become a means to bailout flagging mainline and liberal denominations and ministries, who will have no problem accommodating their religious practices to secular standards. Continue Reading...
February 13, 2009

An Economic Recovery for the Religious Left

Mark Tooley calls out “emerging church maestro” Brian Mclaren in a piece today in The American Spectator titled “A Real ‘Economic’ Recovery.” I was introduced to Brian McLaren in seminary when new students were required to read his books in introductory classes. Continue Reading...
February 12, 2009

Roepke was right

In my Winter 2007 article on economic globalization for AGAIN Magazine, I quoted economist Wilhelm Roepke. (AGAIN is published by Conciliar Media Ministries, a department of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church of North America). Continue Reading...
February 12, 2009

The Buckleyization of America

William F. Buckley, 1956: [I’d] sooner be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the two thousand members of the faculty of Harvard University. Continue Reading...
February 12, 2009

PBR: Public Good and the Faith-Based Initiative

In response to the question, “What is the future of the faith-based initiative?” I have little confidence in the future of the faith-based initiative because conservatives who gain office are unwilling to take any fire at all in order to advance the cause beyond concept. Continue Reading...