The Great-Society Welfare State and the Fiscal Crisis Ever since Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, released his daring deficit-reduction plan in April, policymakers and policy experts have been touting “entitlement reform” as the key to controlling run-away federal spending. Even before the Republicans took control of the House of […]
Read MoreWhy Medicaid Reform Requires a Revival of Marriage That Medicaid is in crisis, few will dispute. Total Medicaid expenditures reached $373.9 billion in 2009 (15 percent of all national health expenditures), up dramatically from $200.5 billion in 2000, from $73.7 billion in 1990, and from just $26.0 billion in 1980.[1] Even appropriate adjustments for inflation […]
Read MoreRestoring the Family-Friendly Roots of Social Security When Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, the Republican presidential hopeful did himself few favors if he becomes the GOP nominee to challenge President Obama in 2012. At the same time, the Texas Governor may believe that his characterization of the relatively successful and popular social-insurance […]
Read MoreHow President Obama Executed a Campaign Pledge and What It Means for America When a lame-duck Congress voted last December to overturn a 1993 law, one passed by huge majorities of both houses of Congress and which unambiguously proscribed homosexual conduct as incompatible with military service, the repeal engendered a widespread reaction that the whole […]
Read MoreThe Disaster of No-Fault Divorce and Its Legacy of Cohabitation When Ronald Reagan signed the nation’s first No-Fault Divorce legis-lation as governor of California in 1969, little did he suspect that this policy innovation would lead not only to a dramatic increase in divorce rates but also a consequent plunge in marriage rates and a […]
Read MoreHow Same-Sex Marriage Suffocates Freedom Those advocating the radical social innovation, which they label “same-sex or gay marriage,” typically claim that they are fighting for freedom, championing a basic liberty. “Freedom to Marry” is indeed the name of a national organization devoted to the advocacy of same-sex marriage. Established in 2003 by civil-rights advocate Evan […]
Read MoreThe American Law Institute’s Role in Deconstructing the Family Legislative reforms that have prohibited American courts from finding fault when a man and a woman divorce are now leading the nation toward a situation in which no state would be permitted to deny a same-sex couple’s application for marriage. This turn of events owes its […]
Read MoreWhy Policymakers Should Grow the Family, Not Just GDP Way back in 1995, more than a dozen years before the traumatic financial upheavals of 2008, The Atlantic had the audacity to puncture the perception of good times during the Clinton presidency, a perception fueled by endless news reports of a bullish stock market, rising industrial […]
Read MoreWhy Entitlement Reform Needs a Fertility Boost The deep and punishing recession that began with the financial crisis of 2008 will almost certainly become, in tomorrow’s history books, a demarcation line separating what was and what is yet to come. Since the end of World War Two, the United States and other Western democracies have […]
Read MoreProven Principles of Economic and Fiscal Sanity When the stock market dramatically and swiftly declined in September 2008, prompting Senator John McCain to suspend his presidential campaign and return to Washington, D.C., to discuss federal action to prevent a financial meltdown, it signaled that something was fundamentally wrong with the American economy. That jittery month […]
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