During primary elections in the United States, it’s hardly unusual for those seeking their party’s nomination to make outlandish promises that aren’t likely to be kept. Thus we saw Senator Elizabeth Warren recently outlined her plan to abolish student debt, and pay for it by levying a tax on the super-rich (however that is defined). The cost of all this? Senator Warren says about 1.25 trillion (US). She also wants to make tuition-free at public colleges and universities. All es...

If you’re a pro-life conservative Christian you’ll eventually hear someone on the left assert that you can’t be consistently pro-life if you don’t support government policies to reduce poverty. If we truly cared about life in and out of the womb, they say, you’d support government intervention not only to ban abortion but to make abortion unnecessary. They are right to call us to be consistent. But they are wrong to assume consistency requires supporting their preferred government interventions. As...

This is the season of Jewish Passover and Christian Easter (orPascha.) This is the time when Jews recall how God passed over their homes and spared their first born, led them dry shod across the Red Sea and saved them from slavery in Egypt. It is the time when Christians remember the paschal mysteries of Jesus who rescued us from slavery to sin and death. At the core of both feasts is the Exodus from Egypt. It is a defining...

After yellow vest protests raged in the streets of Paris for 23 consecutive weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron has responded with a package of tax cuts and decentralizing political reforms. Macron unveiled the proposals at the Elysée presidential palace in the first domestic press conference of since he took office. The gilet jaunesprotests were named for the fluorescent yellow vests French motorists must wear when stopped at roadside; The New Republic likened the vests to “the armor of light” mentioned...

Student debt in the United States is currently over $1.5 trillion. Samuel Gregg has recently criticized Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) plan for student debt forgiveness as an answer to this crisis for ignoring the dangers of moral hazard. This post is a follow-up on that one. In short, as Gregg notes, quoting his book For God and Profit, moral hazard is defined by circumstances, policies and institutions that encourage individuals and businesses to take on excessive risk, most notably with...

During a CNN town hall on Monday, a student asked Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris whether they would allow felons in prison to vote: You have said that you believe that people with felony records should be allowed to vote while in prison. Does this mean that you would support enfranchising people like the Boston Marathon bomber, a convicted terrorist and murderer? Do you think that those convicted of sexual assault should have the opportunity to vote...

“President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported washing machines has had an odd effect,” notes Jim Tankersley in the New York Times. “It raised prices on washing machines, as expected, but also drove up the cost of clothes dryers, which rose by $92 last year. Tankersley is referring to a new report by a team of economists at the University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Board that studied the effects of Trump’s 2018 tariffs on imported washing machines....

On this episode, we bring John Baden onto the show. A rancher in Bozeman Montana, Baden has co-founded several organizations dedicated to free market environmentalism including the Foundation for Research on Economics and Environment, an organization dedicated to implementing “an economic way of thinking consistent with a society of free and responsible individuals.” Baden will be addressing the environmental concerns raised in the Green New Deal and show how free markets can tackle them. After that, Acton’s Dan Hugger speaks...

There are some steps a person can take to have a good chance at finding happiness and avoiding poverty in life, notes Brent Orrell, but despite what some researchers say, the truth is a little plicated than a simple sequence. ...

The first time I met Fr. James Schall it was around 1984 when I was a seminarian at the Catholic University of America in search of a spiritual director. We met and although Fr. Schall never became my spiritual director, he became an intellectual mentor instead, as well as a dear personal friend and longtime collaborator with the Acton Institute. As might be considered a reward for faithful service, Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., died during Holy Week. I first...