(Foundational) Fiscal Policy

Americans Are Getting Caught in the Safety Net AA

By Paul Ryan and Les Ford Aug. 20, 2026

Principles of Government · September 7, 2026 ·

By Paul Ryan and Les Ford Aug. 20, 2026 – …America’s safety net is badly broken. It often punishes families who make progress toward financial stability. Parents who work more hours or increase their salaries can lose more in benefits than they gain in income…. a hypothetical single parent in the District of Columbia gains nothing financially as earnings rise from $11,000 to $65,000. When these “benefit cliffs” punish parents for earning more or getting married, they weaken the foundations of self-sufficiency and help transmit poverty from one generation to the next….UBI doesn’t solve any of this and creates another benefit cliff. Rather than reforming the safety net that discourages work and marriage, UBI would make unconditional assistance a permanent feature. Read More

Debt Has Always Been the Ruin of Great Powers. Is the U.S. Next? AA

By Niall Ferguson Feb. 21, 2025

Principles of Government · August 24, 2026 ·

By Niall Ferguson Feb. 21, 2025 – What I call Ferguson’s Law states that any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense risks ceasing to be a great power. The insight is not mine but originates with the Scottish political theorist Adam Ferguson, whose “Essay on the History of Civil Society” (1767) brilliantly identified the perils of excessive public debt. Read More

America Needs the Filibuster AA

By Ben Sasse July 19, 2026

Principles of Government · July 26, 2026 ·

By Ben Sasse July 19, 2026 – The filibuster prevents the dramatic pendulum swings that are the natural result of simple-majority lawmaking. Every election and every vote becomes an existential crisis in a system that no longer plods through checks and balances but instead rushes to European-style referenda…. It’s a partisan’s dream: Court packing, new states, federal takeover of state elections…Sweeping changes to nearly every aspect of national and local life….The reality is that once the dam breaks, the stakes will climb endlessly higher. Read More

Big Government Inevitably Invites Corruption AA

By Marian L. Tupy July 20, 2026

Principles of Government · July 23, 2026 ·

By Marian L. Tupy July 20, 2026 – But what makes such conduct possible in the first place? Democrats rightly blame the man….But there is another culprit. The power of the federal government, which commands the fate of every major enterprise in America. A tariff waiver can mean billions for one company and bankruptcy for its rival. An antitrust filing can erase a decade of shareholder value in an afternoon. A procurement decision can build a company, and a regulatory finding can bury one. When the government holds that much influence, officials need not even demand tribute. Tribute arrives on its own…. When government can make or break a business, businesses will invest in making friends with government, and the return on a lobbyist will exceed the return on an engineer. Corruption and discretionary power go hand in hand. Read More

Justice Thomas: Progressives vs. the Declaration AA

By Justice Clarence Thomas speech excerps

Principles of Government · July 14, 2026 ·

By Justice Clarence Thomas- Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement—…—to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration. Progressives strove to undo the Declaration’s commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self-evident….But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockean bounds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx and their followers. Fascism—which, after all, was a national socialism—triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, the “vision of the anointed.” Read More

America Needs the Filibuster AA

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(Foundational) Fiscal Policy

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Characteristics of Government

Principles of Good Government

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