Everyone agrees that we need government to regulate various parts of our society. In fact, the Constitution sets forth some of the vital functions for the government. But I also think that most of us believe there are too many government regulations.

Peter Roff, writing in U.S. News and World Report, put it this way. “Existing regulations are sometimes unnecessary, frequently in conflict, and are enforced by bureaucracies that have lost sight of their original mission. Instead they seek to ensure the right tickets are punched and the proper boxes are checked as though they alone can guarantee consumer safety, economic competition, and financial market stability.”

There is an economic cost we end up paying to comply with all of these regulations. Think of the amount of time many of us spend in filing our income taxes. Now multiply that by hundreds and thousands of hours. You can begin to see one cost of regulations. And this does not even count the number of efficient ways we could produce a product or service if there weren’t government regulations preventing a simpler way of producing it.

Peter Roff says “there’s no really good way to determine the total annual cost of the regulatory burden.” Some groups have tried to get an estimate on the costs, and they have done it in a way that drives the point home to each of us.

In previous commentaries I have talked about the Cost of Government Day. This is the date on which the average American has paid his share of the financial burden imposed by the spending and regulation that occurs on the federal, state, and local levels. This date usually lands in July. In other words, you spend more than half the year working to pay for the cost of taxes and the cost of all regulations.

It is time for Congress to study the regulatory burden that regulations and the regulators put on individuals and businesses.

In past commentaries when I have talked about poverty, I usually point to the importance of marriage and family. In some of my commentaries, I even quote from William Galston, who served in the Clinton administration. He talks about how important it is for young people to graduate from high school and to wait to have children until they get married.

In one op-ed he put it this way. Want to know the best poverty cure? Get married. Single parenthood hurts all children, and black children bear the greatest brunt of single parenthood’s harms.

Education is important. Among black women with a bachelor’s degree or more, the ever-married rate is 71 percent. For those without a high-school diploma, it in only 56 percent. Race does matter in these statistics since the percentages for black women are lower than for white women.

He cites other startling differences. “Consider that 71 percent of African-American infants are born to unmarried women, compared with 29 percent for white women.” Having a child does not encourage couples to get married. The father may leave, or the couple may choose to live together.

Galston points out that cohabitation is not a replacement for marriage. Cohabiting couples only stay together for about 18 months on average. Most children see their parents break up before their teen years.

It turns out that family instability harms all children, but some are affected negatively more than others. Boys, for example, fare worse then girls. And African-American boys fare the worst. Many of the problems they have in school are due to behavioral issues such as truancy and classroom disruption. This is one of the major reasons for the significant difference in boy-girl high-school graduation rates.

Galston cites many studies that all remind us that children reared in an intact marriage with the biological father and mother do much better. Marriage is the best cure for poverty.

Today is Good Friday. On this day, believers around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We all understand that. What most of us don’t understand is why this dark day in which Jesus suffered and died is called “Good Friday.” Why isn’t it called Bad Friday or Dark Friday?

Over the years, people have put forward various theories. Some argue that it is called Good Friday because something good came about because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. While that is certainly true theologically, that is not the linguistic origin of the term Good Friday.

Others have suggested that Good Friday came from a shortening of the words God’s Friday. Although you do see that suggestion in some articles on the Internet, there really isn’t any connection between the words god and good. At best, this is mere linguistic speculation.

More likely that term Good Friday comes from an older meaning of the word good. It used to mean holy. So you can think of the term Good Friday as really meaning Holy Friday. This fits with other languages that refer to this day as Sacred Friday or even Passion Friday.

Today we commemorate when the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus. He was sinless, and thus the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He paid the penalty that we deserved to pay. As the song says: “He paid a debt He did not owe” because “I owed a debt I could not pay.”

Good Friday begins the most momentous weekend in the history of the world. Because of the death of Jesus, we can receive the free gift of eternal life. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can know that there is life beyond the grave. That is why this weekend is a cause for great celebration.

What makes a society successful? With all the talk this last year about trying to Make America Great Again, the focus has been on individual political and economic policies. As important as those are, we need to step back and ask the bigger question about what makes for successful societies.

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has an answer to that fundamental question. His book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, puts so much in historical context: “For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps—competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization.”

Most of these ideas that Ferguson mentions arose in the West because of Christianity. In previous commentaries I have talked about how a Judeo-Christian view gave rise to modern science, legal principles, and even the Protestant work ethic. If these were the killer apps that made for a successful society, then certainly a Christian foundation for society today would nourish and develop these even more effectively than any other cultural or religious foundation.

Of course, here is the problem. Our secular society loves the fruits of Christianity, but is also ready to cut down the tree that provided them. We see attacks on Christianity and attacks on religious liberty. Christian values gave rise to successful societies, so a return to biblical values is an important ingredient some trend watchers have been missing.

When President Trump published his proposed budget cuts, many media outlets focused on cuts to public broadcasting. Writers for USA Today newspaper wondered if the proposed budget would kill Big Bird. Others wondered if this might be the end of programs like Sesame Street.

Frankly, I don’t think members of Congress will actually cut funds to public broadcasting. So I want to talk about a more important issue: media manipulation. For the last two years, Sesame Street has been produced by HBO. The programs air on HBO first and only later appear on PBS.

But that did not stop lots of media outlets from using Sesame Street characters in their stories and editorials in an attempt to sway people against the proposed budget cuts. Julia Seymour provides a number of examples of how Big Bird and Sesame Street characters were used. The Atlantic, for example, used an image of Elmo, Bert, Ernie and other characters to argue against any budget cuts.

And speaking of budgets, Sesame Street seems to be doing quite well. The Sesame Workshop brings in money from distribution fees, royalties, and character licensing. An article in Investor’s Business Daily estimates revenues of $121.6 million for 2016. Only a mere 4 percent came from the government.

So why did these media outlets use Big Bird to argue against any budget cuts? This strategy allows them to redirect our attention away from the liberal bias of many public broadcasting programs and some of the special features that have had an anti-Christian bias. It is fair to say that many of these programs can hardly be justified as being “in the public interest.” And these programs have been expensive. “Since its creation, taxpayers financed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the tune of nearly $12 trillion.”

Its worth remembering these facts the next time you see someone in the media argue that budget cuts will kill Big Bird.

President Trump wants Congress to tackle tax reform. He and they are likely to encounter some significant obstacles in order to get this passed by both houses. Tax reform is long overdue so its likelihood of passing may be fairly good.

Trump’s plan would condense the current seven tax brackets into just three brackets. That will certainly make it simpler. The income threshold for single taxpayers will be exactly half of the threshold for married joint filers. That will eliminate the so-called “marriage penalty.”

Trump also wants to eliminate the estate tax. This is something that has been proposed and modified over the years. The tax currently applies only to estates worth more than $5.45 million, yet that still affects family businesses and many family farms.

Trump also wants to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. He also would like to pass a one-time discounted rate so that companies with foreign stockpiles of cash could repatriate that money.

One of the greatest challenges to tax reform is the federal debt. When President Reagan proposed significant tax reform, the national debt was less than a trillion dollars. Now the debt is nearly 20 trillion dollars.

Democrats, especially in the U.S. Senate, will likely oppose any Republican tax reform. That means that Republicans in that chamber would need to use the reconciliation process to pass any tax reform legislation. That will make the process more complex.

Perhaps the greatest challenge will be the American people. All taxpayers are affected by tax reform. In the recent battle over health care insurance, everyone had an opinion because everyone is affected by health care. And like health care, tax policy is complex and not easily understood by many Americans.

Reforming the tax code is necessary, but there will be many challenges ahead.

When members of Congress once again decide to tackle the difficult issue of health care, they need to look at the reasons health care costs are rising. John Stossel reminds us in a recent column that 7 in 8 health care dollars are paid by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance companies. There is no really free market in health care. That is why costs rose 467 percent over the last three decades.

Health insurance costs will continue to rise because Obamacare mandates various benefits and offers subsidies to lots of people. Here is just a short list of procedures that insurers must cover: birth control, alcohol counseling, depression screening, diet counseling, tobacco use screening, breastfeeding counseling. Some people may want these, but everyone must pay for them due to these mandates.

Perhaps the biggest reason health care costs continue to increase is the fact that someone else is paying for it. John Stossel explains: “We don’t shop around. We don’t ask, ‘Do I really need that test? Is there a place where it’s cheaper?'”

A recent article in the Dallas Morning News illustrated the difference in price if you are willing to shop around. The average charge for heart bypass surgery at one medical center in Plano (a suburb of Dallas) was $241,332. The average for all hospitals in that county was $164,757. That’s quite a difference

If you look at medical areas not covered by insurance you notice something striking. The costs for procedures like plastic surgery or LASIK eye care have actually decreased over time. The National Center for Policy Analysis found that from 1999 to 2011, the price of traditional LASIK eye surgery dropped from over $2,000 to about $1,700.

When members of Congress once again look at health insurance, they need to structure legislation that takes into account the reasons health care costs are rising.

Addiction is hard to escape. Whether we are talking about drugs and alcohol or gambling or a variety of other addictions. Dennis Prager says one of the hardest addictions to escape is the addiction of getting something for nothing.

The addiction he is talking about is the entitlement addiction. He reminds us that we have lots of examples of people voluntarily giving up drugs, alcohol, or gambling. We don’t have many examples of people giving up their addiction to entitlements.

They are alluring. Giving up cash payments for food stamps, subsidized housing, and free or subsidized health insurance is very hard to do. Liberal politicians know this and thereby enable the behavior by making it relatively easy to obtain and fairly hard to quit. Often the withdrawal symptoms are too much to handle.

Dennis Prager says that is another reason that entitlements addictions are hard to break. It is unique among addictions. Very few drug and alcohol addicts believe they are owed drugs. “Entitlement addicts, on the other hand, believe that society owes them every entitlement they receive—and often more.”

If you think about it, the word “entitlement” sends a message that you have a right to a particular government benefit. So there is a moral component involved in this particular addition. I might mention that many of the callers to my radio program hate that Social Security and Medicare are called entitlements because they rightly point out that they paid into the system.

Entitlement addiction is also hurting the country. The financial cost is significant. The amount spent on entitlements in the last 50 years ($22 trillion) is nearly equal to the U.S. national debt (almost $20 trillion). And the social cost of putting many generations in a position of dependency on the government will have long lasting effects. This is why it will be hard to break the entitlement addiction.