Earlier today, Congressional Republicans introduced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the House version of their long-promised tax reform legislation. Here is what you should know about the bill: How does the plan affect individual taxpayers? The legislation proposes the following changes: • Increases the standard deduction from $6,350 to $12,000 for single filers and from $12,700 to $24,000 for married couples. • Creates a larger “zero tax bracket” by eliminating taxes on the first $24,000 of e. • Reduces...

Series Note: Jobs are one of the most important aspects of a morally functioning economy. They help us serve the needs of our neighbors and lead to human flourishing both for the individual and munities. Conversely, not having a job can adversely affect spiritual and psychological well-being of individuals and families. Because unemployment is a spiritual problem, Christians in America need to understand and be aware of the monthly data on employment. Each month highlight the latest numbers we need...

A slight majority of Americans oppose banning hateful and offensive speech—but mostly because we can’t agree on what speech is hateful and offensive. That’s a key takeaway from the Cato Institute’s new survey report, “The State of Free Speech and Tolerance in America.” The findings in almost every category are distressing for those who abhor offensive speech but believe it should remain legal to express such sentiments in the public square. According to the report, only 59 percent of Americans...

Growing up, I was fascinated with authors such as Ayn Rand, Aldous Huxley, Lois Lowry, George Orwell, and others who developed dystopian worlds through their writing. Reading their works was a fun way to explore the extremes that our society would never e. According to a recent article inWiredby Rachel Botsman, some of those fictional worlds ing ever closer to reality, with the Chinese government developing a new algorithm that will allow them to rank their citizens on a so-called...

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Marc Vander Maas talks to Joe Carter, senior editor at the Acton Institute, on wealth creation versus redistribution of wealth. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker discusses recent jazz releases with Daniel Montgomery, former director of marketing and design at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: “How should the church encourage wealth creation?” by Joe Carter “Getting serious about poverty means...

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe is well-known for volunteering to die in place of another prisoner at Auschwitz. However, his history as a pioneering entrepreneur, who used the latest technology and managerial techniques to increase his ministry’s outreach, has inspired a new movement for the pope to name him “the patron saint of entrepreneurs and start-ups.” The fascinating history of how the Polish Franciscan used innovative techniques, employed the latest forms munications, and oversaw hundreds of workers is the subject of a...

Fueled by a mix of misguided cultural pressures and misaligned government laws and incentives, the path to educational and economic success has e increasingly cookie-cutter, consisting of a strict step-ladder from high school graduation to four-year college education. Rather than approaching each individual as a creative person with unique gifts and educational aspirations — not to mention unique advantages and disadvantages — our culture and policymaking continues to assume that one vocational or educational track ought to apply to all....

“One of the famous formulas e out of the Reformation era is that ofsemper reformanda, which means ‘always reforming,’” says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. “This is a particularly appropriate topic for this observance of Reformation Day, now 500 years after Luther’s publication of the 95 Theses.” The point of departure for the Protestant Reformation was originally a somewhat limited set of topics or doctrines, particularly those related to soteriology the doctrine of salvation. In this sense Luther’s...

The deepest division running through the West is not between Right and Left, or liberty and collectivism. Western civilization must choose this day whether it is grounded in a covenant or a degraded and authoritarian form of populism, according to the former Chief Rabbi of the UK. While receiving AEI’s highest honor, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks distinguished between two rival views of society derived from his exegesis of I Samuel 8. A social contract creates a government, while a covenant...

The implications of the Reformation are more than ecclesiastical or theological, says Timothy Terrell,professor of economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They include shifts in economic thought as well, and Protestant ideas have had a lasting impact on our way of thinking about markets and liberty. There is, of course, no one religious—or irreligious—group that can claim to have birthed Austrian economics, and certainly Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists, and others have had a part in its development. However,...