It looks like Congress will vote later today or this evening to raise the debt ceiling and avert a possible default by the United States Treasury. How the debt promise will fair when measured against Acton’s Principles for Budget Reform it is too early to know, but one thing is certain: if the deal contains a single budget cut for even the most ineffective of social programs, we’ll hear screams of protest from Jim Wallis and his Circle of Protection....

In a recent Reuters opinion column, Mark Thoma faults academic economists for their failure to predict the housing crash. He says their failure can be attributed to the disconnect between academia and economic forecasters. I don’t agree with Thoma, but I do think he gets it right when he says the failure of modern day economics, May have something to do with the desire among economists to e more of a science – a heavy focus on theory and math...

Over at ThinkChristian, I take the opportunity to sketch “what prehensive Christian response to the crisis of public and private debt might look like.” I focus “on five main areas: the individual, familial, ecclesial, economic, and political.” This is a brief and preliminary set of questions and observations. But even so, I think even just provisional attempts to evaluate our values shows us that “the problems we face are far more than political – and far deeper than merely political...

George Weigel writes on National Review Online, “something quite remarkable has e unmistakably clear across the Atlantic: Ireland—where the constitution begins, ‘In the name of the Most Holy Trinity’—has e the most stridently anti-Catholic country in the Western world.” While he calls the Irish prime minister’s recent anti-Catholic tirade what it is—calumnious—Weigel also acknowledges that the Church in Irelandis in a bad way. He goes so far as to say Apostolic visitations of the principal Irish dioceses and seminaries have...

Acton Institute would like to invite you to tune into BIZ TV for showings of The Call of the Entrepreneur, the first documentary released by ActonMedia. BIZ TV will be presenting the film today (July 29) at 5:00 pm EST, tomorrow (July 30) at 8:00 am EST, and Sunday, July 31 at 7:00 pm EST. BIZ TV is a network focused on airing inspirational true stories and informative talk shows that educate and motivate America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners,...

Over the past few weeks, Kishore Jayabalan – Director of Acton’s Rome office – has been called upon a couple of times ment on Italian and American budget negotiations for Vatican Radio. On Saturday, Jayabalan discussed the then-ongoing US budget negotiations: [audio: Kishore also made an appearance on Vatican Radio to discuss Italy’s debt issues back on the 13th of July, making the point that while austerity would be required, economic growth would be a necessity as well for Italy...

This past weekend in Chicago a luncheon was held for the kickoff of college football’s Big 10 Conference. Michigan State University quarterback, Kirk Cousins, was featured at the conference, giving an honorary talk on his journey through four years in college football, and the important lessons he took away from his experience. Cousin’s stresses the opportunity given to him at MSU was one of privilege. Unlike most haughty star athletes, Kirk Cousins seem to understand what it truly means to...

Immigration is never a light topic to discuss, and even the proposition of a solution to the effects caused by immigration might well be considered radical. The idea of a harmonious multicultural society is idealistic, but in reality, is very difficult to achieve. When looking at the advantages and disadvantages of immigration, relative to the nation receiving immigrants, the economy is a concern that es up. In a recent IEA (Institute of Economic Affairs) paper, Nobel Prize winner Professor Gary...

I was listening to news radio and heard an update in which the senate majority leader Harry Reid gave his interpretation of events on the debt ceiling negotiation. The part that really got my attention was where he insisted that mittee work would go after those “millionaires and billionaires.” I wondered, “What is he really saying?” Let’s begin with millionaires and billionaires. Is Reid charging them with mitted some evil? If a person had made a lot of money by...

Mark Tooley has an excellent write up over at FrontPage about religious left figures staging martyr like arrests in defense of tax increases, unsustainable deficit spending, and the welfare state. Here are some details provided by Tooley: Religious Left officials on July 28 successfully sought arrest for “faithful civil disobedience” in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to protest any consideration of limits on the Welfare and Entitlement State. They were also demanding tax increases. Unlike more courageous and spiritually insightful fellow...