The president spoke at the annual prayer breakfast this week and had some "interesting" things to say about tax policy, New Testament theology, and the role a Christian should play (and pay) in society.

I wrote about the whole thing over at AEI's "Values and Capitalism" blog.  Here's an excerpt:

Most of the verses that sound like the president’s reference have nothing to do with charity and speak to the need a true believer has to be utterly dependent and subservient to the Spirit and Word of God. Matthew 25:29, which reads, “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance,” is a call to Christians to use their God-given abilities and advantages wisely and productively. This is seen as a non-negotiable aspect of being a disciple of Christ. The reward for such behavior is additional opportunities to serve God “faithfully and fruitfully,” as one commentator puts it.

And here is where “faith and politics” smash right up against one another. As I said before, nearly every American is on-board with the notion that people should pay their taxes. We all (correctly) praise those who give their time and money to those in need. We’re all for helping and fairness and puppy dogs.

The problem, simply put, is this: If another self-proclaimed Christian is using scripture and doctrine to promote things that I know to be detrimental to an economy and society, I can’t support that Christian merely because he brings up “Christian stuff” in convoluted ways. I can pray for that Christian. I can be cordial and kind. If that Christian is willing, I can use the Matthew 18 model of coming to that “brother” in hopes of admonishing and correcting him. But if he persists, if entire swaths of our society persist, then I am duty-bound to oppose the ill-fated plans. Regardless of intentions—something only God can assess anyway—I must apply the advantages I’ve been gifted. In this instance, President Obama unfortunately learned at the feet of people who believe in economic policies that can’t work.

Please read the entire thing right here.

The favorite line of an increasing number of Center-Right politicians and pundits goes something like this: "This election is all about the economy, and so social issues - issues of morality - are going to have to take a back-seat."  To put it in terms everyone can understand: Mitt, not Rick (Santorum or Perry).

Seems reasonable, right?  I mean, the economy is, shall we say, lackluster, and it seems as if the #1 topic on peoples' minds is - to quote the previous Madame Speaker of the House - "jobs, jobs, jobs!"

But are we setting up a false dichotomy, one in which "morality" and "economics" are needlessly (and some might say "foolishly") separated?  Are we recklessly forgetting that neither Party ever wins national elections without an animated and motivated base, and that the bases of each are animated and motivated by "social issues" more than anything else?

I am fine with Mitt Romney being our nominee in 2012, and my concern is not simply that Republicans will fail to meet the seemingly mandatory quota of "Pro-Life" and "Traditional Marriage" references in stump speeches.  What troubles me is the thought that many on the Center-Right don't see the inseparable connection between morality and economics.  We're in a "long war" against the irreconcilable wing of Islam externally, but here at home we're in an intellectual - nearly spiritual - battle for the hearts and minds of millions of people who typically vote liberal/Democrat and who have become convinced that the federal government is their caretaker and friend.

Writing in his Break Point commentary today, Chuck Colson drives home this very point in a clear and articulate way:

Doesn’t anybody get the connection between the social issues and economics issues?

One candidate who does, Rick Santorum had the courage to link the two in a recent Iowa town hall meeting. (And before I go on, please, folks, I’m not endorsing him or anyone. I never do.)

Here’s what Senator Santorum said:

“Yes, [the election is] about growth and the economy, [but] it’s also about what is at the core of our country . . . faith and family. You can’t have a strong economy, you can’t have limited government if the family is breaking down and we don’t live good, moral, and decent lives.”

Precisely right. And what does he get for his remarks? Backhanded compliments for his showing in Iowa and a stern warning from, among others, the conservative National Review:

Here’s what the National Review wrote online: “In a general election…where the focus is almost certainly going to be on economic issues, it is questionable whether Santorum’s relentless focus on social issues will play well with independent voters, especially in the crucial suburbs.”

Hogwash. If the nation’s current economic crisis has taught us anything, it’s that a healthy economy cannot thrive in the midst of moral breakdown. Ethical failures on Wall Street, Main Street, and Capitol Hill put us into this mess we’re in today, as I’ve said many times before.

Again, I don't care if Rick Santorum isn't the GOP's primary victor.  As an evangelical conservative I honestly don't.  Politicians matter, but ideas, ideals, and values matter more.  We should be diligent in selecting the candidate we will end up voting for in the primary and general election, but we should be ever-vigilant for opportunities to make the moral case for free enterprise and, as the good folks at The Acton Institute put it, the "Free and Virtuous Society."

Colson continues:

But how about some facts? I’ll have the citations for you at BreakPoint.org: Take incarceration rates: something Santorum has alluded to and I’ve seen with my own eyes: “Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families.” And “70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.”

How about education? 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. And children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes.

I could go on and on.

Do you think that crime rates, incarceration, low educational achievement, out of wedlock births, affect the economy and government spending? Of course they do and the statistics prove this!

If you want a healthy, thriving economy you’ve got to have a strong moral societal foundation. And any so-called “conservatives” who think otherwise are simply deluding themselves; the two issues simply can’t be separated.

I couldn't agree more.

What say you?  Is Colson over-stating his case?

Staffers from the American Enterprise Institute - as well as AEI's president, Arthur C. Brooks - were featured on the PBS News Hour this week.  For those of you who don't know, I write and host a podcast for AEI and their "Values and Capitalism" project.

The topic of the segment on PBS was "Happiness and Inequality" and the network's correspondent filed a report about the significant gap between liberals and conservatives when it comes to their levels of personal happiness and contentment.

I'm proud to be associated with AEI, and proud to be a conservative.

If you don't know what the term "crony capitalism" means, they've already won.  Watch this video and equip yourself with some powerful insights into what lays at the heart of many of our nation's economic woes.

Please send this to other people! Especially those who support the Occupy Wall Street movement, and blame everything on "free markets" and "de-regulation."

I'm not alone when I say in reference to Chairman of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan (R-WI): "I have seen the future (of the conservative movement), and it works."  If this guy is emblematic of a new crop of conservative politicians, we on the Right have reason for (cautious) optimism.  Here is Rep. Ryan speaking at The Heritage Foundation just a few days ago in Washington D.C.:

It will take much, much more than one man, but Paul Ryan is a very, very good start.

For more with Paul Ryan, check out Peter Robinson's interview with the congressman last month on the web-show Uncommon Knowledge.

I can be hard on Ron Paul, but I thought his appearance on NBC's Meet The Press yesterday is worth a few minutes of your time.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We need voices like Rep. Paul's out there, especially during an election cycle.  He forces the discussion on the Right back to where it should reside: limited government.  I appreciate that.  A lot.

Washington Post columnist George Will, a rabid baseball enthusiast, would appreciate this metaphor: Dude knocked it out of the park with this, his latest piece in the Post.

WASHINGTON — In societies governed by persuasion, politics is mostly talk, so liberals’ impoverishment of their vocabulary matters.

Having damaged liberalism’s reputation, they call themselves progressives. Having made the federal government’s pretensions absurd, they have resurrected the supposed synonym “federal family.” Having made federal spending suspect, they advocate “investments” — for “job creation,” a euphemism for stimulus, another word they have made toxic.

Barack Obama, a pitilessly rhetorical president, continues to grab the nation by its lapels but the nation is no longer listening. This matters because ominous portents are multiplying.

He continues:

For two years, there has been one constant: As events have refuted the Obama administration’s certitudes, it has retained its insufferable knowingness. It knew that the stimulus would hold unemployment below 8 percent. Oops. Unemployment has been at least 9 percent in 26 of the 30 months since the stimulus was passed. Michael Boskin of Stanford says that even if one charitably accepts the administration’s self-serving estimate of jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus, each job cost $280,000 — five times America’s median pay.

The economic policy the “federal family” should adopt can be expressed in five one-syllable words: Get. Out. Of. The. Way.

Instead, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, whose department has become a venture capital firm for crony capitalism and costly flops at creating “green jobs,” praises the policy of essentially banishing the incandescent light bulb as “taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.”

Better to let the experts in his department and the rest of the federal family waste other people’s money.

Indeed.

Read the full column right here.

In his tremendous weekly column, historian Dr. Victor Davis Hanson gives readers the opportunity to pretend they are back in college and still have a chance to learn some actual history.

For example, in his latest piece at National Review, Professor Hanson sheds some light on the pervasive myth that FDR "saved" America by spending a bunch of money (and then got to spend even more...huzzah!...during WWII).

Since 2009, the example of the economic boom following World War II has been used by Keynesians to justify their record “peacetime” levels of borrowing intended to lift the U.S. out of the doldrums. Indeed, the more the contemporary borrowing fails, the more the vast indebtedness of the war years is invoked to reassure us. On occasion a wry lament follows that if only a spaceship full of dangerous aliens were to appear, we might have the requisite excuse to follow our grandfathers into a new collective frenzy of economic stimulus and public debt.

....

For decades the liberal argument was that the New Deal cured the Depression. But in a new twist, the war has suddenly been reinvented to support the current arguments of the new Keynesians — despite the irony in the embrace of the old right-wing argument that it was the World War II defense spending, not FDR’s New Deal, that finally got America out of a near-decade-long depression.

In ingenious fashion, the new argument insists that the second downward spiral of 1937–38 — formerly ostensible proof that five years of the New Deal and of anti-business rhetoric had not worked — should be attributed only to FDR’s lacking the will or political muscle to stay the course and accelerate deficit spending, redistribute more income, and grow far bigger government. Then luckily the war came along. That crisis provided the necessary political landscape, which had been lacking during the supposed Keynesian backsliding of Roosevelt’s second term, to force through the long-awaited New New Deal. At last, the really big scare allowed the really big borrowing, and the result was the really big prosperity for the next half-century.

He continues:

But as many have pointed out, there are all sorts of problems with this account. During World War II, the American public scrimped and saved. If household income increased, so did household savings — not surprisingly, given the rationing of many consumer goods and total unavailability of others. Washers, dryers, hot-water heaters, vacuum cleaners — all those and more were bought for the first time after the war, and often without borrowing.

In other words, there was plenty of private postwar investment capital and household money waiting to be tapped when the shooting stopped and millions came home — especially for basics such as new cars, trucks, tractors, and appliances.

But now? Household credit-card and mortgage debt, for all the new frugality, remain high. Consumers are strapped, even those who have jobs and have not lost thousands in collapsed home equity and depleted 401(k) retirement plans, or made nothing in years from near-zero-interest savings accounts. In other words, we do not have a long-deprived public, flush with years of hoarded cash, just waiting with pent-up demand to buy brand new labor-saving devices and shiny new vehicles produced in converted tank and bomber factories. There is no need to add that in a pre–Great Society America, without food stamps, two to three years of unemployment insurance, and housing subsidies, there might have been more incentive to hustle for jobs.

To compare what worked before the creation of the Welfare State to our current predicament is laughable.  Economists like Thomas Sowell and Amity Schlaes have shown that FDR's "New Deal" (think: "stimulus package") not only didn't help, it hurt and impeded the economy's recovery.

Moreover, the world abroad in 1946 was hardly similar to the world in 2011. Review the prior status of our present global competitors: India was a backward colony and in civil turmoil. War-torn China was about to embark on the most self-destructive social experiment in human history. Two-thirds of a centrally planned Soviet Union was in shambles. Western Europe was near starving after years of bombing and Nazi strangulation. The future export powerhouses of Japan and Germany were in ruins. Brazil was pre-modern. The miracles of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea were still imaginary. A victorious Britain was full of self-doubt and exhausted, busy dismantling its colonial empire and nationalizing its steel, transportation, health, and energy industries.

In the immediate postwar years, only a capitalist, self-confident America was poised to supply foreigners with much-needed manufactured goods, expertise, and capital to raise the world from ruin. And from the profits, we were able to pay down our own staggering and unsupportable wartime-incurred debt. Note as well that in 1946 a self-sufficient oil-producing America was not guzzling down a half-trillion dollars’ worth of imported oil each year.

In short, in 2011 there is nothing that suggests the present massive borrowing will lead us to anything like the prosperity of the postwar years — a time when social spending and entitlements accounted for 30 percent, not 70 percent of the annual federal budget; when households both had cash and were eager to buy long-denied items; when America did not import high-cost oil (having recently supplied 80 percent of its wartime allies’ oil needs from domestic production); and when an unscathed industrial-powerhouse United States was alone on top of the world.

But if we must go back to the post–World War II era for an example to enlighten us about what the current Obama policies presage, then the similarities to the present are not to be found in 1940s America. A better guide is Clement Attlee’s 1946 United Kingdom, which, like Obama’s 2011 America, sought to retrench from the world scene, lead from behind, and establish a much-vaunted high-tax, big-government, cradle-to-grave redistributive welfare state — one whose legacy we have just witnessed in London’s streets.

Ideas have consequences.  Even ideas that begin with good intentions.  (Especially those.)

I have a question: why is this history never taught to high school and college students?  Why must we only be able to get it from the likes of VDH in a weekly column?

It's so easy for people of my generation to forget that, up until 1991, Russian Communism was a reality in the world.

A dominating, all-encompassing  reality.

The Cold War wasn't just some foot-note of history that your public school history teacher glosses over to squeeze in yet another unit on how we mistreated Native Americans.  This summer I've been reading through Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, considered to be one of the most important works of the 20th century.

It is the non-fiction account of what exactly it was like to live under the totalitarian USSR regime, but the thing reads like a Dostoevsky novel.  It reads like 1984 or Brave New World, only worse, because it is real.  People actually treated other humans this way.  And not in some age long past: it was within my own lifetime.

It still continues in various forms today around the planet.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, "People need to be reminded much more often than instructed."  We all know communism is a bad thing.  But just how bad was it?  What ideas and values and historical events led the people of Russia to such a wretched place?  What can we learn from their mistakes and the sacrifice of millions who were murdered under Soviet rule?

Yuri Yarim-Agaev was a Russian scientist and political dissident in the 1970's.  Recently he sat down with my favorite interviewer (Peter Robinson, host of Uncommon Knowledge) and had much to say about what happened "over there" and what we can do to ensure it never happens over here.

This was only Part 1 of the interview. Watch the full conversation between Robinson and Yarim-Agaev right here.

Dr. Arthur Brooks is a name and a man you ought to know.  He is the president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C., and one of the most articulate defenders of free market economics on the planet.  Dr. Brooks has written several important books in the past 5 years, and I simply could not recommend them more highly to you.

Appearing last night on John Stossel's Fox Business Network show, Stossel, Dr. Brooks explained to the host why allowing the federal government to re-distribute more and more of the nation's wealth is immoral and a recipe for disaster.

We're lucky to have men like Dr. Brooks out there. But, we could use 100 more like him. This post over at The Washington Examiner asks the question: Who will groom the next Arthur Brooks?