What just happened? Last week the House Agriculture Committee introduced the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, monly known as the Farm Bill. The new Farm Bill makes significant changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the “largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.” What is SNAP? The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a federal welfare program that provides nutritional support for low-wage working families, e seniors, and people with disabilities living on fixed es. This program,...

Review of Pope Francis and the Caring Society, edited by Robert M. Whaples; The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA; 2017, 234 pp. Having toiled in the free-market research universe for nearly two decades, perhaps the mon misperception I’ve encountered is “whataboutism.” Readers know of which I write: “What about BP and Deepwater Horizon?” or “What about Enron?” and, perhaps most stridently, “What about the mortgage-lending plicity in causing the Great Recession?” When this rhetorical strafing fails, there’s always the “What about...

“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” -John 5:17 As the faith-work movement continues to grow across modern evangelicalism, many Christians are gaining renewed perspectives on the meaning and dignity of daily work. Yet even as we begin to understand God’s planand purposefor our work, many of us still assume that this is where God’s role ends. But God doesn’t just infuse our work with meaning and then sit back on...

As we continue to see emerging instances of anti-poverty activism gone wrong, we are routinely reminded that good intentions aren’t enough. Alas, while such intentions can sometimes serve as fuel for positive transformation, they can also be a blind spot for hearts and minds. As Oswald Chambersonce cautioned,“Always guard against self-chosen service for God,” which “may be a disease that impairs your service.” If our primary starting point is self-sacrifice for the sake of self-sacrifice, the actual goal is lost,...

It happens every day: The news tells us of some new government scandal. The executive branch uses dubious powers to circumvent the constitutional strictures of oversight. The judicial branch, in turn, creates law out of whole cloth and styles its invention the “law of the land.” The legislative branch exempts itself from its most onerous legislation but forces taxpayers to fund secret payouts to the victims of its members’ indiscretions. Then there is the the fourth branch of government, the...

Today is the 275th birthday of Thomas Jefferson. Since our third president would object to us celebrating his birthday (“The only birthday I memorate,” Jefferson once said, “is that of our Independence, the Fourth of July.”) let’s take this opportunity to instead look at six quotes by Jefferson on liberty and government. On personal liberty: “Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every es into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the...

America’s fastest-growing food chain e to New York City. But as Hunter Baker notes in this week’s Acton Commentary, the pany’s success sticks in the craw of some who find it to be an alien presence due to the Christianity of the family who owns pany and their traditional values.” A recentNew Yorkerpiecerefers to the Chick-fil-A expansion as a “creepy infiltration” of the city. The writer expresses part of his alarm by noting that pany’s headquarters includes a “statue of...

This episode of Radio Free Acton starts off with the second installment of the Business FX segment, featuring a talk on ethics in the workplace between John Couretas, director munications at Acton, and Phil Sotok, management consultant with DPMC. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker interviews Kathy Murray of the Austin-based Blues band Kathy and the Kilowatts on the history of the Austin blues scene and themes of freedom in Blues music. Check out these additional resources on...

Today is Patriots’ Day, an annual observance of the anniversary of when the American colonies first took up arms against the British Crown on April 19, 1775. Patriot’s Day has e a forgotten holiday, due in part to the fact we Americans have a peculiar relationship to the term “patriot.” To question someone’s patriotism is considered an insult, while to praise their patriotism is (usually) pliment. Yet strangely, the only people who refer to pletely without irony or qualification, as...

‘Ludwig von Mises’ by Ludwig von Mises Institute CC BY-SA 3.0 Richard H. Spady, research professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, has recently published a piece at First Things entitled ‘Economics as Ideology’ in which he explores some contemporary trends among economists and their use of economics as a Procrustean bed to reshape society in its own image, A body of thought is “ideological” when it will­fully projects its own first principles on its subject matter and actively seeks, perhaps...