Author: Jim Bennett

Canonizing Free Speech

I begin with a few more words about civility, but to make a different point than my last post on the subject. A few years back, an old acquaintance found me on Facebook and sent me a friend request. I accepted, whereupon he proceeded to launch a lengthy ideological diatribe as to why I was […]

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Canonizing Faith

Every year since the beginning of time, my extended family has attended Aspen Grove Family Camp up in Provo Canyon. Being morbidly afraid of heights, I spent years avoiding Aspen Grove’s massive ropes course, where you climb up into the trees and walk around on metal wires that are about thirty feet above the ground, […]

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A Canonization in Civility

My father is the late Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, who served as Utah’s junior senator for 18 years. When he passed just over two years ago, the media was filled with laudatory tributes to him that brought a great deal of comfort to all of us in the family. The problem was that most of […]

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Canonizing Tax Reform

When he was running for office in 2008, Barack Obama, in a primary debate with Hillary Clinton, received the following question from Charlie Gibson of ABC News: MR. GIBSON: You [Barack Obama] have… said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I […]

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Canonizing Entitlements

To illustrate the problem here, I offer three stories with a single moral. Story One: I lived in Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympics. Those were heady, halcyon days, mainly because of all the free food we were getting at McDonalds. You may not remember, but back then, McDonalds was running an Olympic-themed promotion […]

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Canonizing Catastrophic Coverage

So for the past few days, I’ve outlined problems with the American healthcare system. Today, I thought I’d offer a couple of possible solutions. Specifically, we need to look closely at catastrophic coverage and medical savings accounts. Insurance should cover catastrophes, not maintenance. Your car insurance will replace an engine and an auto body that […]

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Canonizing an Individual Mandate

The Trump administration has so far been unable to pass a healthcare bill, but the one thing they have done is repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate requiring purchase of health insurance. That’s unfortunate, because it is impossible to get insurance companies to overlook pre-existing conditions without an insurance mandate. It’s bizarre that the […]

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Canonizing American Healthcare

Who knew healthcare could be so hard?” President Trump once asked. The fact is, if it weren’t hard, there’d be a workable solution by now. It’s sad that our national health care discussion, along with everything else, quickly dissolves into a partisan morass, and that, in their opposition to Obama’s overreach, Republicans have not offered any […]

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Canonizing Trade Deficits

This past summer, I was at a wedding reception talking to a guy who was terrified about the trade deficit. “Did you KNOW,” he said, speaking in capital letters, “that the TRADE DEFICIT last year was 700 BILLION DOLLARS?!!” (That’s him verbatim. You could absolutely hear the extra exclamation points after the question mark.) I […]

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