American credit card debt has now topped $1 trillion. And most of the people in debt don’t pay off their credit cards and thus pay very high interest rates. But never fear. Socialists Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced legislation to provide some relief. Their bill would limit what credit card companies could charge in interest rates.

Although the Bible and even various theologians have warned against usury, I don’t think that is the origin of their concern for the Loan Shark Prevention Act. Instead, they merely think that government should be a solution to any social problem in society. Most Christians would instead suggest that providing biblical counseling on money would be a better solution.

High interest rates are being charged by credit card companies, but also by payday lenders. In previous commentaries, I have talked about how some of these groups prey upon poorer Americans who need to borrow money before their next paycheck. These interest rates being charged seem exorbitant until you realize that some of the people borrowing money have a poor track record in repaying the loan.

By the way, these two socialists aren’t through. They also want the U.S. Postal Service to provide “basic banking services” so that poorer people don’t have to pay banks a monthly service fee. This would be the same U.S. postal service that loses about $5 billion each year and lost a record $15 billion in 2012. Let’s just say that the post office might not be the best model for sound financial management. And postal workers don’t need to be given the responsibility of becoming bank tellers.

These bills and proposals once again illustrate the mindset of some members of Congress who are convinced that the best solution to any social, political, or economic issue is more government.

Should the government break up Facebook? In a previous commentary, I quoted Senator Ted Cruz who observed that the current big tech companies “are larger and more powerful than when Standard Oil was broken up” and “larger and more powerful than AT&T when it was broken up.” Nevertheless, he and other senators don’t seem ready to act.

But joining this discussion is Mark Hughes, the cofounder of Facebook. He concludes in his New York Times op-ed that, “It is time to break up Facebook.” His argument is simple. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have become too powerful and have a virtual monopoly in the area of social media. After all, Facebook has also acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. That means “about 70 percent of American adults use social media, and the vast majority are on Facebook products.”

He reminds us that Mark Zuckerberg has “unilateral control over speech.” In fact, he concludes, “There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people.” While that is true, I must also disagree with the solutions proposed by Mark Hughes. Not only does he want the government to break up Facebook, but he also wants Congress to create a new agency to draft guidelines for acceptable speech on social media.

He does acknowledge that the idea of government regulation of speech “may seem un-American.” Perhaps that is because such an idea is indeed un-American and contrary to the First Amendment. We don’t need government deciding what is or is not acceptable speech.

I applaud Mark Hughes for speaking up about Facebook. He deserves to be heard because he knows Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook because he was its cofounder. His diagnosis is sound, but his prescription is not. If the government does decide to break up Facebook, it shouldn’t then decide to also become the arbiter of what can or cannot be said on social media.

Shootings in schools and synagogues always bring the inevitable question, why? The most recent shootings illustrate that there is no single answer. Although there are some common patterns, there are many different variables.

One comprehensive review of “Three Decades of School Shootings” by Tawnell Hobbs did find some common patterns. A significant number of shooters were bullied, were suicidal, told someone, had access to guns, and planned their actions in advance. Ten shared all five traits, and nine more shared four of those traits. That did account for slightly more than half of the shooters, but it didn’t account for the other half.

The mental illness of shooters was another factor. Public health officials remind us that the vast majority of people with mental disorders are not violent. These medical personnel fear that any attempt to link mass shootings to mental illness will stigmatize such disorders.

However, research by Grant Duwe and Michael Rocque found that 59 percent of the public mass shootings that took place in the US were carried out by people who had either been diagnosed with a mental disorder or demonstrated signs of serious mental illness prior to the attack. But that doesn’t account for the other 41 percent whose actions could not be attributed to mental illness.

What about the worldview of shooters? Many of them were atheists but the shooter in the California synagogue came from a Christian home, attended an Orthodox Presbyterian Church where his father was an elder. Nevertheless, he was infected with
antisemitism and white nationalism. This shooting should be a warning to the church that our Christian kids aren’t even immune to the violent tendencies in our society.

The different aspects of these recent shootings should remind us that there aren’t simple solutions to this specter that haunts our land.

Should convicted felons be allowed to vote? Senator Bernie Sanders believes they should not have that privilege taken away from them. Critics rhetorically ask whether anyone really believes that Oklahoma bomber Terry Nichols and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should vote in the next election. They realize the proposal for what it is: an attempt to get more votes for Democrats.

But if we set aside the blatant attempt to get more votes, the question of whether felons should ever be allowed to vote again is an important question. A good example would be Chuck Colson. After he served time in a federal prison, he was released but not allowed to vote. When he was alive, he would often remind non-voting Christians that it took 30 years to have his voting rights restored. They shouldn’t take that privilege for granted.

One of his illustrations was a young person in his early 20s who was convicted of three drug offenses. If he served his time and got his life together, why should he be denied the right to vote? Kevin Williamson, in a recent column, reminds us that someone who falls behind in court-ordered child-support payments could be charged with a felon. Sure, you should pay child support, but most Americans would not consider even a deadbeat Dad on the same moral plane as the domestic terrorists I just mentioned.

We deny felons the right to vote for the same reason we don’t let them practice law. We don’t trust them with legal or political power they have already demonstrated they do not respect. Of course we also don’t allow them to buy guns or engage in a variety of activities.

If the candidates pushing voting rights for felons would also be talking about restoring other rights to convicted felons as well, it might be easier to take their slogans more seriously. But we should have a discussion about whether rehabilitated criminals should have voting rights restored.

Since a number of presidential candidates are warning about “voter suppression,” it seems like a good time to accurately define the term. Let’s start with a simple issue. Cutting back early voting days is NOT voter suppression. Early voting in North Carolina reduced the days for early voting from 17 to 10. Florida reduced their early voting days from 14 to 8.

Citizens who are properly registered can still vote, but the number of days you can early vote are less. If this were an example of voter suppression, then any of the states that didn’t provide early voting would be guilty of voter suppression. I hope you can see the fallacy of calling this voter suppression.

Now, let’s look more common complaint that voter ID laws and other voting requirements constitute voter suppression. I have documented in previous commentaries that after most of these states instituted voter laws, minority voting increased.

For example, Georgia law required voters to be removed from the rolls if they had not cast a ballot in three years and did not respond to any inquiry by mail. Even though such voters were removed from the rolls, black voter registration increased. And in the last election African-American turnout also increased.

All of these facts along with many other relevant statistics haven’t prevented candidates from making claims of voter suppression. In her keynote speech at the NAACP convention last week, Senator Kamala Harris proclaimed that, “without voter suppression, Stacey Abrams would be governor of Georgia, Andrew Gillum is the governor of Florida.” For the record, Abrams lost by 54,723 votes, and Gillum lost by 32,463 votes.

I hope you keep some of the facts in mind since you will be hearing more about voter suppression from a number of candidates.

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke rolled out his version of a Green New Deal in a video from Yosemite Valley. It doesn’t call for such draconian action as the legislation sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her plan calls for “net zero greenhouse gas emissions” in ten years. He has a target somewhere around the year 2050. Perhaps we should call it the “Light Green New Deal.”

In his video, Beto calls it “the most ambitious climate plan in the history of the United States.” You have to believe some environmentalists are rolling their eyes. His target is more than 20 years further down the road from Green New Deal legislation in Congress. If climate change is the existential threat some candidates keep telling us that it is, why set a target around the year 2050?

Most of this is wishful thinking and utopian planning. The editors at the Wall Street Journal lamented that environmentalists and Democrat candidates tell us that “the Apocalypse is coming but refuse to offer a substantive proposal that is honest about what it would take to get to zero global emissions. This is a debate over how many solar-powered unicorns can dance on the top of a wind turbine.”

Beto would have the US rejoin the Paris Agreement and stop all oil and gas leases on federal lands. His cabinet would then oversee the permitting decisions in the nation to make sure they account for climate costs and community impacts.

Congress would have to enact emission standards and “send a clear price signal to the market” which might be code for a carbon tax and other cap-and-trade schemes. Congress would also have to find the money for all of this.

In the end, he has put forth a proposal that neither side of the political aisle would adopt. It is too timid for the environmentalists and too radical for most other Americans.

One of the lines that Senator Bernie Sanders uses often in his campaign is his concern that “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” Since he and other candidates will continue to proclaim this slogan, it’s worth taking a moment to critique it.

While it is true that the rich are getting richer, it is NOT true that the poor are getting poorer. Let’s put both economic figures on the table for America. In a recent video, John Stossel estimates that the wealth of the richest people doubled over the last four decades. But it is also true that poorer Americans got 32 percent richer during that same period of time. You may have read different statistics, but they all are about in the same order of magnitude so let’s assume they are close to accurate.

A good question might be: Why worry when some people get richer since poor people are also doing better? Sure the percentages are different, but shouldn’t we applaud the fact that a rising tide floats all boats? And let’s look worldwide. In previous commentaries, I have documented the fact that one billion people have been raised out of extreme poverty.

A corollary to this slogan is the claim being made that there is a “lack of income mobility.” Certainly there is some truth to that. Children born to rich parents have a better advantage than children born into poverty. But we are not locked into an economic class.

Economists at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley found that the richest fifth of Americans fell out of the bracket within 20 years. And those born to the poorest fifth climb to a higher quintile, sometimes even to the top. Look at the Forbes richest list, and you will find self-made billionaires who didn’t inherit money.

My point is simple: these campaign slogans sound true and reasonable until you look at some of the economic studies.

One of the criticisms of the claims of human-caused climate change is that the theory predicts everything. Now, you might think that makes it a good theory. Actually, when you have a theory that predicts everything and cannot be falsified, that makes it a bad theory.

In fact, it is easy to find examples of contradictory claims all being attributed to climate change. But let me give you one example. Sharks fascinate us, probably going back decades to the movie “Jaws.” We still seem fascinated by them as illustrated by the popularity of “Shark Week” on television. What do scientists predict about sharks and climate change?

One article from a few years ago in “The Guardian” explains that the surge in fatal shark attacks is “blamed on global warming.” The article does acknowledge that some of the increase may also be due to more human activity and the abundance of seals. But the primary reason for the surge in attacks is climate change.

A more recent article in “The Independent” predicts that global warming could actually make sharks “smaller and less aggressive.” The argument is that warmer waters and increased CO2 could make it more difficult for sharks to catch prey.

A third article comes from scientists in Australia who believe that a new hybrid shark just discovered is a sign of global warming. They argue the two species mating is due to climate change.

Just about every phenomenon in nature is now being explained by climate change. More snow is due to climate change. Less snow is due to climate change. More wild fires are due to climate change. Fewer fires are due to climate change. You will find lots of contradictory examples all attributed to climate change.

When it comes to sharks, many of these claims sound less like science and more like science fiction. Sometimes the claims sound more like science fiction disaster movies like “Sharknado.”