Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter Currently, the House is considering the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In order for tax cutting to work, we must boost economic growth. The president believes we can get the economy growing consistently at 3 percent per year by cutting the corporate tax rate. Opponents of such a cut complain that it would starve the government. They ignore the dynamism that would result from cutting corporate taxes. They believe we have to accept the post-recession economic growth rate of…

Kerby Anderson One of the perennial arguments by atheists is that religion is dangerous and that religion has led to wars and untold suffering. I thought about that claim when I was interviewing Ray Comfort about his new book and video on atheism. He has some arresting statistics. One of the perennial arguments by atheists is that religion is dangerous and that religion has led to wars and untold suffering. I thought about that claim when I was interviewing Ray…

Kerby Anderson Religious liberty is one of the foundations of America, and it is a right enshrined in the First Amendment. But Mary Eberstadt is concerned about the widespread discrimination in today’s secular society. She explains why in her book, It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies. Her book begins with the many stories that I have presented in various commentaries and that we often discuss on the radio each week with Kelly Shackelford of First Liberty. Then…

Kerby Anderson Thomas Sowell wrote about what he thinks is the dumbest idea in politics. Now when you are talking about politics and public policy, there are lots of dumb ideas but this one might be top of the list. He thinks that the most stupid idea you can find in politics is “the assumption that people would be evenly or randomly distributed in incomes, institutions, occupations, or awards.” He argues that this assumption is the basis for so many…

Kerby Anderson One of the reasons the fertility rate in America has been dropping is due to the rising cost of raising a child. Every few years, the Department of Agriculture recalculates the cost to raise a child in America. In fact, there is a USDA Cost of Raising a Child Calculator that you can use to personalize your calculations. One of the biggest factors in the increased cost of raising a child is due to childcare costs. The cost…

Kerby Anderson Thirty years ago, Allan Bloom wrote the book, The Closing of the American Mind. Charles Koch wrote an op-ed with the same title. There are some similarities between the two, but also one important difference. Charles Koch looks back at the revolutionary technological advances we have made and now take for granted. He is concerned that government and the academy are stifling progress. When he attended MIT, he discovered that “scientific and technological progress requires the free and…

Penna Dexter The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is revamping its strategic plan for the years ahead. It is taking steps to reverse the pro-abortion emphasis the previous administration placed on its work. Now the agency is emphasizing the sanctity of human life – from beginning to end. Here’s a quote from the new document: “HHS accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of…

Kerby Anderson George Will asks an intriguing question in a recent column. “What would America’s abortion policy be if the number of months in the gestation of a human infant were a prime number—say, seven or eleven?” He asks that because we artificially divide the nine-month pregnancy into three trimesters. The Senate will soon consider the bill passed by the House that would put additional limits on abortion. Those who are what he calls “pro-abortion absolutists” are disproportionately Democrats who…

Kerby Anderson Now that an abortion bill has made its way to the U.S. Senate, we are seeing a number of pro-choice arguments surfacing on social media. Some are gotcha questions intended to trip up the pro-life movement. John Zmirak talks about readers of his commentaries that want to argue that he is not consistently pro-life since he is against abortion but favors the death penalty. He turns the argument around and says can we apply the same logic to…

Kerby Anderson In many of my commentaries, I lament how just about everything has become politicized. We can attribute that to the fact that we live in a nation that is divided. But Daniel Foster has an additional explanation: social media. He explains this in his column, “Everything All the Time.” His perspective is simple. “It is no longer the case that technologies of communication merely accelerate the public discourse, they now ensure that every possible public discourse happens simultaneously.”…

Kerby Anderson Today is October 31st. Most people know it as “Halloween” but it also has long been known as The Festival of the Dead. The Celtic tribes and their priests, the Druids, celebrated this day as a marker for the change from life to death. November 1 was the beginning of the New Year, so Halloween or “Samhain,” was like New Year’s Eve. It was both a time of death and new beginnings. The young would wander the countryside…