The West is defined by more than just ideas such as freedom, dignity and equality, Samuel Gregg recently remarked in an interview about his new book, “Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization.” “I think at the core of the very identity of the West…is the notion that human beings are wired for truth, that we can engage in reasoned inquiries in search of truth,” he said. “This rational inquiry into truth and emphasis on freedom as self-mastery, ultimately...

Over the past five years some welfare advocates have been promoting an eye-opening claim: more than 3 million U.S. households—including 1.65 million households with children—are living on less than $2 per person, per day. That sounds horrific, and it is: horrifically misleading. New research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finds that more than 90 percent of the 3.6 million non-homeless that had previously been classified as living in extreme poverty were misclassified. Shockingly, more than half...

In an age of deep partisanship and political division, there’s one thing about which America’s political class appears to agree—the public debt being incurred by the U.S. Government. This year, the United States Treasury expects to issue about $1.23 trillion in debt, down slightly from the $1.34 trillion issued in 2018. This was more than double the $546 billion of debt issued in 2017. For all their talk among the fiscal conservatives that can be found on both sides of...

Reuters reported today that a large portion of US farm aid went to the wealthiest farmers and advocacy group. More than half of the Trump administration’s $8.4 billion in trade aid payments to U.S. farmers through April was received by the top 10% of recipients, the country’s biggest and most successful farmers, a study by an advocacy group showed on Tuesday. Highlighting an uneven distribution of the bailout, which was designed to help offset effects of the U.S.-China trade war,...

One of my favorite contemporary writers is Theodore Dalrymple, whose essays I first discovered in The New Criterion about 20 years ago. He wrote that one of his favorite writers, who also had a pen name, was the essayist and critic Simon Leys who died in 2014. I would never e across his work without Dalrymple’s mendation. Recently I finally got around to reading some of Leys’ essays with a mix of delight and disappointment that I had not discovered...

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed a measure it claims will close a loophole that allows states to make participants receiving minimal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits automatically eligible to participate in USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Acting Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps said the proposed rule would result in saving an average of $2.5 billion per year. Here are five facts you should know about food stamp programs like SNAP. 1. The first...

Are those who oppose raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour transgressing the Scripture and mocking the Lord God Almighty? One might get that impression from watching Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, when one of the participants explicitly made that argument. The allegation came when South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg offered his exegesis ofProverbs 14:31. “[T]he minimum wage is just too low,” Buttigieg said. “And so-called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to...

On July 18, the Raise the Wage Act passed the U.S House of Representatives, a bill that would double federal minimum wage by 2025. Members of Congress who support the bill believe it will increase pay for 27 million workers and lift over one million people out of poverty, but those opposed to the bill say it would cause millions more to lose their jobs. Dave Hebert, professor of economics at Aquinas College, joins the podcast to dispel some of...