Acton Institute Powerblog

Promoting free societies characterized by liberty & religious principles

Jesus as Budget Director?

My first reaction to “What Would Jesus Cut?” is that it tends to reduce Christ to a distributor of material goods through government programs. Jesus is not a budget overseer or a dispenser of government largesse. Continue Reading...

Prayer for the future

O God our heavenly Father, you have blessed us and given us dominion over all the earth: Increase our reverence before the mystery of life; and give us new insight into your purposes for the human race, and new wisdom and determination in making provision for its future in accordance with your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Continue Reading...

Explainer: What you should know about federal deficits

What just happened? The White House Office of Management and Budget recently released a forecast that the federal deficit would exceed $1 trillion this year. As Fox News points out, this would be the first time since the four years following the Great Recession that the deficit reached that level. Continue Reading...

Why the ‘success sequence’ is not enough

We’ve seen a drastic shift in the social habits and behaviors of Americans, whether in work, education, or family life. Yet with an ever increasing range of “nontraditional” routes to success and stability, social scientists have begun to see how one particular pattern bears fruit. Continue Reading...

Why social mobility matters—and income inequality does not

When it comes to household income, progressives tend to start with their intuitive understanding of fairness (i.e., some people have a lot more income than others), move to the solution (redistribution of income and wealth from those who have more to those who have less), and only then to develop a metric that justifies implementing their solution: income inequality. Continue Reading...