Sequestration and a Failure of Leadership | Capital Commentary

Sequestration and a Failure of Leadership | Capital Commentary by Aaron Korthuis.  MGB: From what I have heard during the Senate Budget Committee deliberations, the Appropriations Subcommittees will deal with the long term sequestration issues for next year.  It may be that an across the board cut, followed by supplemental appropriations if necessary, will take care of this year.  In the medium term, the big question is whether Obamacare will work - or more specifically if the subsidies for buying a policy are high enough for the uninsured to get health care or wait until they get sick.  If they are less risk averse than health insurance company investors, then this sector either march into a bankruptcy court which will set up a single-payer system out of the ashes or a deal will be made on a subsidized public option for the uninsurable, with the subsidy coming in the form of payroll taxes or some form of consumption tax, which will also take care of out year problems in Medicare and Medicaid.  The real long term problem is that we are constantly rolling over Net Interest on the Debt in order to have the dollar remain the defacto world currency.  We can't do that forever.  Either taxes have to be raised on wealthier citizens who hold the debt or our tax base needs to expand to include more of the world - which also means allowing them into our polity. Actually, I expect both to happen at some point.

Conservative Soul-Searching: The Time is Now | Capital Commentary

Conservative Soul-Searching: The Time is Now | Capital Commentary by Paul Brink.  MGB: I have actually offered the theory of how conservatives and libertarians can work together.  My proposal is to change the tax system to shift from personal taxation to a Net Business Receipts Tax (a Value Added Tax with offsets).  Under this tax, the employees of the firm would each get a vote on how to distribute the offsets to charities who provide social services.  While they could chose the government system, they could also choose their religious institution or a secular provider.  This will shrink the government sector, while still not abandoning the obligation to help those in need.  If everyone picked private institutions and individual retirement accounts holding employer voting stock (some of which is held in an insurance fund with all such companies), the actual tax collected would be zero, even as all needs are met.

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary

Politics & Prose | Capital Commentary by Byron Borger.  About persecution.  I have two views on this.  One is that it is true that such persecution is awful.  The other view is that who are we to deny others the crown of holiness, freely chosen.

The Significance of the New Pope | Capital Commentary

The Significance of the New Pope | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson

Disaster Relief, Climate Change and Fiscal Stewardship | Capital Commentary

Disaster Relief, Climate Change and Fiscal Stewardship | Capital Commentary by Ben Lowe.  MGB: While man does indeed affect climate change, sometimes it is a good thing. We are in a sun spot minimum where cooling would be predicted. Further, the US has actually become better and is leading the way in fighting warming. China, on the other hand, is a disaster - although we are supporting that disaster by making them our chief supplier of goods. Perhaps we can use that leverage to get them to clean up a bit. Christians should be involved in insisting that solutions be brought forward - indeed, Pope Emeritus Benedict was known as an environmentalist pope. Some of the solutions Christians should support can involve changing how companies are owned - moving them from stock ownership by investors to employee and retiree ownership. Such firms are less likely to foul the nest. Sadly, however, there is a point where we must realize that we cannot control the weather (at least not yet), and the best thing we can do, as both Christians and citizens, is move people out of low lying areas through better urban planning and give that land back to nature and God.

Christians Investing in Public Education | Capital Commentary

Christians Investing in Public Education | Capital Commentary by Stephanie Summers.  MGB: It is time for Christians in both the Evangelical, Mainline Protestant and Catholic worlds to rise up and abolish the Blaine Amendments to state constitutions which ban direct funding of religious schools.  While the Charter movement has been a good work-around, it would be better to deal with this anti-Catholic relic directly as a matter of justice.  Also, if we begin to fund more religious schools directly, we must also be ready to raise taxes to capture what would have been paid by higher income individuals for private schooling.

As to the question of community and family support.  In many households, parents are functionally illiterate and cannot help.  Justice demands that these be made whole.  Indeed, such individuals should be paid to become literate and receive full family support and health benefits while doing so.  The religious educational community should also focus on these students as well, rather than leaving it to the public system that failed them in the first place.  Additionally, vocational education should be taken on by such schools. There is no reason religion class need be left out of a culinary school.

Staying in the Political Game | Capital Commentary

Staying in the Political Game | Capital Commentary by Vincent Bacote.  MGB: I don't see a stronger, yet different, faith focus in politics evolving without some form of visible leadership.  Someone from the Christian Left or Christian Center will have to come forward eventually (whether he or she wants to or not - God has ways of bringing people forward).  If we do this, it must be with the entire Church, which means the Catholics must be involved too.