Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, a research-based, public policy “think tank.” He is a health policy expert and weekly contributor at Forbes.com. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Dr. Matthews is a past president of the Health Economics Roundtable for the National Association for Business Economics, the largest trade association of business economists. Dr. Matthews also served for 10 years as the medical ethicist for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board for Human Experimentation, and has contributed chapters to several books, including Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate and The 21st Century Health Care Leader and, in 2009, Stop Paying the Crooks (on Medicare fraud).

He has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Barron’s, USA Today, Forbes magazine and the Washington Times. He was an award-winning political analyst for the USA Radio Network.

Dr. Matthews received his Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Texas.

Cathie Adams serves as the President of Texas Eagle Forum, the International Issues Chairman for Eagle Forum and on the board of the national Eagle Forum. She was elected Republican National Committeewoman for Texas in 2008 and stepped down after being elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas from 2009-2010. She was named by Campaigns and Elections magazine’s August 2010 issue as one of the top 50 Republican influencers in Texas.

Most recently, Cathie has been observing the United Nations design a Green Climate Fund. As an observer of major UN conferences since 1995, Cathie enjoys telling about her experiences. She attended the Women’s Conference in Beijing, China; the Housing Summit in Istanbul, Turkey; the Food Summit in Rome, Italy; and a number of Climate Change meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bonn, Germany, The Hague, Netherlands, Poznan, Poland, Cancun, Mexico, Durban, South Africa, Doha, Qatar, Warsaw, Poland and Lima, Peru. When the International Criminal Court was created in Rome in 1998, Cathie attended the proceedings. She also attended the 2000 Millennium Summit in New York City, the Global Taxing Summit in Monterrey, Mexico, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. She traveled to Hong Kong for a Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization and to Paris, France for a UNESCO meeting.

Mrs. Cathie Adams is a full-time volunteer. She has been married to Dr. Homer Adams for 46 years and they have five grandchildren. Their son and daughter-in-law are both Texas A&M graduates.

Thanks to ObamaCare, a family health insurance policy bought on the health insurance exchange can cost the same or more than leasing a 2017 Bentley, Aston Martin, McLaren or even a Rolls-Royce.

ObamaCare open enrollment for 2018 has begun, so a friend and tax policy expert living in Northern Virginia recently went looking at his family’s health insurance options. A CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield silver-level family HMO plan with a $3,500 deductible would cost my friend $2,179 per month. The BlueCross gold-level HMO with a $1,000 deductible would cost $2,500 per month.

Senate candidate Roy Moore's campaign is calling allegations of sexual misconduct "the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation."

The campaign released a statement on Thursday after The Washington Post reported the Alabama Republican candidate had sexual contact with one teenager and pursued three others nearly four decades ago.

The campaign says, "Judge Roy Moore has endured the most outlandish attacks on any candidate in the modern political arena, but this story in today's Washington Post alleging sexual impropriety takes the cake."

The statement also notes that Moore has been married to the same woman for 33 years and has four children and five grandchildren.

One is tempted to say of Democrats’ new-found concern about the size of federal debt, "better late than never"—except it’s the epitome of chutzpah.

Republicans recently passed budget instructions that will allow them to move tax reform legislation that could increase the federal debt by up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Democrats are not happy.

WJLA in Washington quotes Democratic Senator Ben Cardin as saying, “It should not increase the deficit, and by definition, they’re allowing a $1.5 trillion increase in our national debt under that tax bill.”

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in October, “The longer we wait to address the debt in a serious manner, the more the safety net frays, and the harder this crisis will be to address.”

Where are all the defenders of 401(k) plans when it comes to the topic of reforming Social Security so that it operates a similar way?

The Republicans’ tax reform package could limit how much workers are allowed to deposit tax free in their 401(k) plans. That possibility spurred numerous commentators to expound on 401(k)s’ financial benefits.

Take, for example, syndicated personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary’s recent column “We can all learn from 401(k) millionaires.”

She writes, “The proof of the success of the 401(k) or TSP [Thrift Savings Plan, essentially a 401(k) for federal employees] had been the ability of an increasing number of participants to reach a high milestone.” That “milestone” is $1 million or more in retirement savings.

She’s right, of course.

Apple claims to be a defender of First Amendment rights, but it just joined other business heavyweights in trying to deny them to Masterpiece Cakeshop.

On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook accepted the Newseum’s Free Expression Award. In his remarks, Cook clearly and unequivocally defended the idea that corporations have values, and that they must protect their values in the marketplace and the public square: We have a perspective on major public issues, and we are prepared to take a stand for things that we deeply believe in. . . . A company is not some faceless, shapeless thing that exists apart from society. A company is a collection of human beings, and part of the fabric of our society. A company like ours has a culture, it has values, and it has a voice. Apple has spoken out, and will continue to speak out, for what we believe as a company. And the positions we take will continue to guide our actions.