Welfare

Mitch Kokai gave comments to the Winston-Salem Journal for a recent story on Unemployment Insurance (UI) in North Carolina. The story reports on the changes in UI following the Great Recession. According to the article, the state racked up $2.8 billion in debt to the U.S. Labor and Treasury…

Michael Tanner writes for National Review Online about contrasting ways to address the needs of the poor. It probably won’t come as much of a surprise to learn that most Americans regard the War on Poverty as a failure. According to a new YouGov poll, conducted for the…

Nima Sanandaji explains for National Review Online readers one of the welfare state’s unintended consequences. At a time when the American Left wants to introduce Swedish-style socialism into the U.S., we should remember that generous welfare states pose a moral hazard. Their well-intentioned policies undermine individual responsibility and…

Tennessee is on the verge of seeking a block grant for Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health coverage for children and their parents and long-term care for the elderly, blind, and disabled. The block grant would allow Tennessee to tailor Medicaid to the needs of its people, but…

Andrew Klavan provides a stirring apology of Christianity at City Journal. He critiques those who think materialism is all we need and those who act “as if there were a God” but cannot bring themselves to belief. Klavan echoes G.K. Chesterton that “Christianity has not been tried and found…

Andrew Biggs provides a reminder that governments are the main source of concern for future retirees’ incomes. while household retirement savings are growing, government retirement plans—Social Security, government employee pensions and the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.—are underfunded by up to $26 trillion. The World Economic Forum estimates that…

“Hierarchy is not imposed, it is natural,” Duke professor Adrian Bejan told J. Peder Zane in a recent interview. “Equality, however, is artificial, because it violates the law of evolution in nature.” Bejan comes to this conclusion because “physics and economics are two sides of the same coin,” and…

“Economic growth, while necessary, is insufficient to address many of the challenges of our 21st-century economy,” Abby McCloskey writes in National Affairs. She offers some policy suggestions to improve connections in community, make work pay, and reform entitlements to improve government finances. I don’t endorse all of them, but…