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The Lighthouse®

The Lighthouse® is the weekly email newsletter of the Independent Institute.
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Volume 23, Issue 6: February 23, 2021

By John C. Goodman (Forbes, 2/8/21)
We could improve the way people manage their own spending on health care by combining Health Savings Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts, and Flexible Spending Accounts into one easy-to-use account. While we’re at it, we should eliminate across-the-board deductibles, create special accounts for the chronically ill and for primary care, and set up Roth accounts for seniors. READ MORE »



By Lawrence J. McQuillan (The Hill, 2/14/21)
Capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from abject poverty during the past three decades, yet the Vatican’s new papal-private partnership seeks to reform the market economy rather than the governments that impede it from “lifting more boats.” There’s nothing compassionate about using the government to rob from Peter to pay Paul. READ MORE »

Pope Francis and the Caring Society
Edited by Robert M. Whaples


By Bruce Yandle (Washington Examiner, 2/19/21)
According to President Biden, we face not only a COVID-19 crisis, but also an economic crisis, a hunger crisis, an affordable care crisis, a housing affordability crisis, a global refugee crisis, a gun violence crisis, and a humanitarian border crisis. By elevating so many challenges to the status of “crisis,” however, we run the risk of embracing panicky approaches that foster government dependence and help create other problems. READ MORE »



By William J. Watkins, Jr. (National Review, 2/20/21)
The Republican Party needs new leadership to urge Americans to avoid needless wars and falling deeper into the statist quagmire. Although he never secured his party’s nomination for president, the great senator from Ohio, Robert A. Taft (1889–1953), offers a model for what the GOP and America currently lacks. READ MORE »



By Alberto Mingardi (The Independent Review, Winter 2020/21)
The story of two young lovers hindered by war, famine, plague, and a jealous nobleman, The Betrothed (1827) is both one of the world’s greatest works of historical fiction and one of the best treatises of political economy ever penned. It’s no wonder that well-read economists have urged government ministers and business managers to dip into Alessandro Manzoni’s literary masterpiece whenever they have an idle moment. READ MORE »





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