President Obama, Vice President Biden to Announce $8 Billion for High-Speed Rail Projects Across the Country DOT Awards $2.4 Billion to Continue Developing 21st Century High-speed Passenger Rail Corridors “You’ll be given cushy jobs!” ...

One of the interesting things you learn when you start working at the Acton Institute is that the brother of Acton Institute co-founder and president Rev. Robert A. Sirico is an actor. A pretty famous actor, actually. And eventually it sinks in that Father Sirico’s brother Tony is, in fact, Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos. Now, if you know anything about Paulie Walnuts, you know that he’s a pretty tough character: a gangster with few scruples about engaging in all...

The Hastert Center at Wheaton College will host a debate tomorrow night between Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, and Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, on the question, “Does Capitalism Have a Soul?” Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson will moderate. In framing the debate, Dr. Seth Norton, Hastert Center director, notes in the press release: “It’s a good chance pare different visions of capitalism and market economies, and to discuss the role of government in those economies. There...

Jordan Ballor and I are hosting an Acton on Tap on Thursday October 28 at Derby Station in East Grand Rapids. The event starts promptly at 6:30 p.m. If you are in the Grand Rapids area and like humor, politics, and fellowship, please plan on attending. Here is our description from the event page: On the eve of mid-term elections, Jordan J. Ballor and Ray Nothstine of the Acton Institute discuss the role of politics in contemporary American life, especially...

Very often it is difficult to see in any concrete way how our work really means anything at all. The drudgery of the daily routine can be numbing, sometimes literally depending on your working conditions. What is the purpose, the end of our work? How can we properly value that aspect of our vocations that involve daily work? How can you and I, in the words of the manager in the movie Elf, “make work your favorite”? Lester DeKoster, in...

There were a few stories from the Grand Rapids Press over the weekend that form data points pointing toward some depressing trends: a decline in charitable giving (especially to churches), supplanting of private charity by government welfare, and the attempt to suppress explicit Christian identity. Here’s a list with some brief annotations: “Study reveals church giving at lowest point since Great Depression” (10/23/10): This is really a damning first sentence: “…congregations have waning influence among charitable causes because their focus...

Published today in Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter from the Acton Institute here. Barack von Bismarck By Anthony Bradley The November congressional elections are not so much a referendum on the Obama administration as a check on whether President Barack Obama’s implementation of a Bismarckian vision of government will continue. Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister/German chancellor from 1862 to 1890, is the father of the welfare state. He advanced the vision...

Published today in Acton News & Commentary. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter from the Acton Institute here. Juan Williams’ Firing Might Produce Desired Results By Bruce Edward Walker It was a tough few days last week in Radio Wobegone. And it promises to get tougher in the days, weeks and months ahead. The base of operations for Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk is in serious hot water. National Public Radio dismissed newsman Juan Williams for an...

David Bahnsen, writing on The Bahnsen Viewpoint, has a great report on last night’s Acton dinner: “Good news – the President has announced a reduction of the government work force by one million people (20%). Bad news – the cuts were ordered by President Raul Castro in Cuba.” So began the 20th anniversary dinner of The Acton Institute tonight in Grand Rapids, MI. Acton co-founder, Kris Alan Mauren loosened up the crowd with the aforementioned joke which served the dual...

In response to backlash from China for awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, one of the Middle Kingdom’s best-known democracy activists, Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland penned a New York Times op-ed to defend mittee’s decision. He begins: “The Chinese authorities’ condemnation of the Nobel Committee’s selection of Liu Xiaobo, the jailed political activist, as the winner of the 2010 Peace Prize inadvertently illustrates why human rights are worth defending.” So far, so good. From scathing op-eds...