Last night the President spoke of “the challenge of entitlements” and said that “Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid mitments of conscience — and so it is our duty to keep them permanently sound.” “With enough good sense and good will, you and I can fix Medicare and Medicaid — and save Social Security,” he averred. The ability of the federal government to negotiate drug prices has been an aspect of the recent debate over Medicare that was brought to...

mittee, arguably, has more power or attracts more lobbyists than the Committee on Ways and Means,” writes the NYT’s Robin Toner. “Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, joined mittee in 1975, and now, at the age of 76, has finally arrived at the very top.” “[Jesus] said the rich are going straight to hell.” Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist, said: “When the Ways and Means Committee has worked well, they’ve identified social needs and advocated for the funds...

Pick up the new monograph, Judaism, Markets, and Capitalism: Separating Myth from Reality, from the all-new Acton Bookshoppe today! How does one account for the widespread distaste among Jews for a free market political agenda? Why is it that Jews, who earn per capita almost twice as much as non-Jews in America, “fervently support relatively collectivist social policies”? Corinne and Robert Sauer, co-founders of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, contend that “it is not at all true that Judaism...

Kim Strasell in OpinionJournal today: CEOs are quick learners, and even those who would get smacked by a carbon cap are now devising ways to make warming work to their political advantage. The “most creative” prize goes to steel giant Nucor. Steven Rowlan, pany’s environmental director, doesn’t want carbon caps in the U.S.–oh, no. The smarter answer, he explains, would be for the U.S. to impose trade restrictions on foreign firms that aren’t environmentally clean. Global warming as foil for...

They say that technology drives culture (HT: Zondervan>To The Point). But what drives technology? Many believe that pornography is the driving force behind adoption of particular technologies. Thus, says Slate television critic Troy Patterson, “Watching YouTube is far closer to consuming Internet pornography than staring at the television. … But then, all media culture has an increasingly pornographic feel, doesn’t it?” Let’s look at some actual cases where this claim has been made (HT: Slashdot). In a recent TG Daily...

The Detroit News ran mentary from the end of last year on the role of religion and prisoner reform today, “Don’t prevent religion from helping to reform prisoners.” The version that ran today omits the references to Jeremy Bentham, which you can get from the original and this related blog post. In related news, Prison Fellowship president Mark Earley reports today that the “Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has set February 13, 2007, for oral arguments in the appeal of...

With respect to the extension of political, economic, and religious freedom, East Asia contains some of the more challenging spots on the globe. mented in the past on Korea and China. It seems safe now to place in the column “making progress” a nation that had been one of the most totalitarian, Vietnam. Concerning the sphere of religious freedom, Zenit offers this interview (Daily Dispatch 01-25) with French Archbishop Bernard-Nicolas Aubertin of Tours. Aubertin characterizes the situation of the Catholic...

Child labor is too expensive, at least for the Grand Rapids Press. As part of “cost-cutting measures,” The Press will no longer be delivered by paperboys and papergirls under the age of 18. According to , “In a change to the way they deliver their papers to their carriers, The Press announced they will drop off their papers to depots around the city instead of at neighborhood corners. The carrier will have to go to that depot to get their...

You may have seen this story a few weeks back toward the end of last year: “Some faith groups say bottled water immoral,” by Rebecca U. Cho of the Religion News Service. The core of the story revolves around this assertion made by the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program and a number of other mainline projects: Drinking bottled water is a sin. Cassandra Carmichael, director of eco-justice programs for the National Council of Churches, bases this claim on the...

Via Drudge, the Weather Channel “Climate Expert” is taking serious flack (check ments) for her call to pull the credentials of any media meteorologist who doesn’t endorse the theory of human-caused global warming. The cover provided by her boss doesn’t garner any more favorable feedback. I think people want more science from scientists and less dogma. I know I do. UPDATE: On the other hand, this seems a little over the top. If forecasters can’t reliably tell us what will...