Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'entitlements'

The Welfare State and Intergenerational Injustice

Last Saturday The Imaginative Conservative published my essay, “Let’s Get Back to Robbing Peter: The Welfare State and Demographic Decline.” To add to what I say there, it should be a far more pressing concern to conscientious citizens that the US national debt has risen from $13 trillion in 2010 to nearly $18 trillion today. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: Americans’ ‘Absurd Expectations’ and the Economic Crisis

Samuel Gregg, Acton’s Director of Research and author of the book “Becoming Europe“, says one of America’s real debt dangers is our increasing sense of entitlement from the government. In today’s Investor’s Business Daily editorial, Gregg states our “insatiable appetites” are getting us into the very deep economic trouble that no one, least of all politicians, seems to want to face: …Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker famously lamented in 2007: “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.” Continue Reading...

Where’s the Leadership?

Rumors are flying about a possible hearing involving Standard & Poor’s. It is believed the Senate Banking Committee is gathering information on the credit rating agency. Disgruntled over the loss of the government’s AAA rating, the rumored investigation is believed to be sparked by Treasury Department officials claiming that S&P’s judgment was affected by an error that overstated national debt projections by $2 trillion. Continue Reading...

Senator Reid Punts on Necessary Reforms

Yesterday Senator Harry Reid finally proposed a budget plan – one week before the United States is set to default. It is about time that Senate Democrats joined President Obama and House Republicans in offering a concrete budget proposal; however, their budget plan passes the buck onto future generations. Continue Reading...

Ponnuru on Ponzi and Pyramids

Ramesh Ponnuru says Social Security is worse than a Ponzi scheme. He’s right. It’s more like an inter-generational pyramid scheme, a pyramid tipped on its side… To be sustainable, over time (T) it has to take more from more people (thus a three-dimensional pyramid rather than a two-dimensional triangle. Continue Reading...

The Real Third Rail in Politics

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Jennifer Roback Morse wonders why no one is talking about the Forbidden Topic in the Social Security debate. That taboo subject is the declining birth rate. Continue Reading...