I have been very outspoken in my opposition to cuts in what I would call the means-tested entitlement programs: Medicaid, food stamps, and all of that. I feel very, very strongly that those cuts as proposed are unjust, but I am not prepared to label Ronald Reagan a "sinner."It seems to me that when you invoke the adjective "moral" you must be careful to distinguish what it is you mean by that.

I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

I think the Ronald Reagan tax reform proposals are a step toward distributive justice. They redistribute the tax burden more equitably and more progressively among individuals and call upon business to carry a somewhat larger proportion of the total tax load. Both of these are steps toward equity and distributive justice.

Taxes are the flip side of expenditures. The same issues apply on both sides. There are questions of fairness and justice as much in the way you take money away as in the way you disburse it.

I'm a product of a Notre Dame education; those professors taught me a lot about how you separate the city of God from the state. I'm also a reverent follower of the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. My years of public life have simply confirmed the intensity of my belief that what I have learned from Joe Evans and Thomas Jefferson was correct.

I would argue that practices that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs.

If the bishops are saying that it is divine revelation that seven percent of unemployment is morally unacceptable and that that is a teaching which must as a matter of faith be accepted by all Catholics, I respectfully dissent.