Ethics and Public Policy Center
About EPPC Contact EPPC Support EPPC My EPPC
  Find:    
Home News & Updates Conferences & Events Programs Publications Fellows & Scholars
 

 President Reagan and Pope John Paul II
 Judging Justices, Catholic and Otherwise
 


 UCLA Tests Congress
 What We Know About Obama
 

 Dissolution of Bioethics Council is a Loss for America
 Lessons From St. Augustine
The Gathering Storm 

 
 Special Report: Iran
 Election Day in Iran
 
  Entry from July 2, 2009
  Entry from July 1, 2009
  Entry from June 30, 2009
 
Welcome to EPPC Online
The Ethics and Public Policy Center was established in 1976 to clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign policy issues. [Read More]

Latest News & Publications

Dissolution of Bioethics Council is a Loss for America
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Friday, July 3, 2009
Last month, President Barack Obama quietly disbanded the President's Council on Bioethics, a deliberative body whose changing cast of erudite and ideologically diverse members had spent the past eight years thinking through today's toughest moral questions.
Our Sophist-in-Chief
By Peter Wehner
Friday, July 3, 2009
Obama is, he would have us believe, uniquely able to transcend old, tired, and rutted debates, to think anew, and to bring a fresh, creative approach to the problems of our time. He alone inhabits the upper world.
When the Government Runs Health Insurance
By James C. Capretta, Roy Ramthun
Friday, July 3, 2009
Obama administration officials have been promising to “bend the cost-curve” with reforms in Medicare that reward quality and pay for value, but what they have actually proposed are indiscriminate fee cuts to meet spending targets
President Reagan and Pope John Paul II
By George Weigel
Friday, July 3, 2009
They were two of the giant figures of the last half of the twentieth century -- Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II -- and they had many things in common. Both were trained actors whose craft had taught them the power of words to change minds and hearts. Both came to eminence through unconventional routes, and against the grain of a lot of the common wisdom.
Lessons From St. Augustine
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Friday, July 3, 2009
Cringe-inducing public confessions like those Governor Sanford has been delivering in recent days are a sadly familiar feature of American political life today. A cynical public has grown accustomed to hearing politicians from President Bill Clinton to Senators John Edwards and David Vitter employ religious language about sin and redemption when admitting to adulterous affairs.
Obama's Plan? Or Yours?
We should choose a health-care system in which decisions are made closer to home.
By Rick Santorum
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Health care is broken, but a reform measure based solely on government expansion fixes nothing. In order for any health care system to be both efficient and effective, it must be placed in the hands of the individuals who stand to gain from it.
An Important Milestone in the Iraq War
By Peter Wehner
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Today marks the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraqi urban areas, the result of a deadline contained in the Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) that the Bush administration negotiated and the Obama administration embraced. It is a milestone on the road to Iraqi sovereignty and a useful moment, I think, to consider three widespread -- and to some extent inter-related -- arguments that were made about Iraq in recent years.
Shop Class as Soulcraft
BOOK EVENT: Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford on the Case for the Manual Trades
Monday, June 29, 2009
Matthew B. Crawford's new book Shop Class as Soulcraft has been called "timely and provocative" (New York Times), "a powerful case for the special value of skilled work" (Wall Street Journal), and "the best self-help book I've ever read" (Slate). Mr. Crawford will discuss his book in this evening lecture at EPPC, describing both the intrinsic satisfactions and the social value of the manual trades. A wine and cheese reception will follow.
Exploitative Reality Shows Degrade Us, Too
By Colleen Carroll Campbell
Friday, June 26, 2009
The excruciatingly public marital troubles between Jon and Kate Gosselin reached their predictable denouement Monday when the reality television stars announced their impeding divorce before an audience of 10.6 million.  And true to form, the couple assured viewers that the divorce would not interfere with their hit cable series. As Kate Gosselin said gravely, "The show must go on."
The Senate Health Care Bills
$1.5 Trillion Sticker Shock
By James C. Capretta
Friday, June 26, 2009
Taxpayers are in for sticker shock.  The total federal cost for the health-care plan pushed by the Obama administration is at least $1 trillion over 10 years, and perhaps $1.5 trillion, depending on certain specifications.  Early estimates show costs rising 6.7 percent per year, far outpacing the growth rate of the national economy.
Judging Justices, Catholic and Otherwise
By George Weigel
Friday, June 26, 2009
"Empathy" is an admirable quality in a judge in certain legal circumstances -- sentencing, for example -- but not in determining what the law means. No claim to superior "empathy" ought to change that constitutional fact. Indeed, the federal judicial oath itself enjoins a dispassionate commitment to equal justice on all judges. 
The Predictable Rebellion
Who knew an Iranian revolution was coming? Anyone who cared to look.
By Rick Santorum
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Contrary to the claims from our foreign policy establishment, the popular uprising we're witnessing in Iran should not come as a surprise.  We need now to redeem our prior ignorance and assist the courageous dissidents in every way possible.
Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

In a series of posts on National Review Online's Bench Memos blog, EPPC President Ed Whelan is addressing the record of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.  Mr. Whelan’s posts are available here.  

The Truth of Catholicism

George Weigel's book, The Truth of Catholicism, has recently been published in an Albanian edition, having previously appeared in English, Polish, Italian, and Portuguese. The book appears in the "Faith and Culture" series of Logos publishers in Tirana, the Albanian capital; previous authors in the series include Nikolai Berdiaev, Joseph Ratzinger, Jean Guitton, Peter L. Berger, and Romano Guardini. 


Socialism and Cancer
Health care in the United States is worse than what you'd get in Colombia, Saudi Arabia, or Cuba -- at least according to liberal critics and international bureaucrats. Not so fast, says David Gratzer in EPPC's journal The New Atlantis. Far from dismal, American health care is by some important measures the best in the world, and a close look at the statistics reveals a link between market forces and quality medicine.

Fixing American Health Care
The American system of employer-based health insurance is a happenstance of history, the result of wage controls put in place during World War II. It distorts the health care market by separating value from price: workers are unaware of the true cost of the medical services they receive. In this New Atlantis essay, Joseph V. Kennedy examines how competition could be used to maximize quality and minimize cost.

Blogging Health Care Policy: Read EPPC Fellow James C. Capretta's health care policy blog, Diagnosis.  


Faith & Culture
Family in Crisis

EPPC Fellow Colleen Carroll Campbell interviews Dr. Allan Carlson, President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, about the historical roots of our modern family crisis and how we can learn from the past to strengthen the family today. The show, "Faith & Culture" airs Sunday, July 5, at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Time and Wednesday, July 8, at 11 p.m. ET, on EWTN, the world's largest religious media network.