Category: reason

“Should We Regulate Foreign Speech?”

The book is available here, and the symposium posts (from many people) are here. Here’s my post, which is also available here:

Rick Hasen’s book identifies a tremendously serious problem; and it offers only modest solutions. And rightly so, I think: As the book correctly points out, more aggressive restrictions (such as bans on supposedly “misleading” advocacy) will likely be cures that are worse than the disease, however serious the disease might be.

I therefore have little quarrel with many of Rick’s suggestions. But I do want to talk briefly about the problem of foreign speech that may influence election campaigns, which Rick suggests should be even more restricted than it is now (see pp. 102-09).

Protecting American self-government from undue foreign influence is of course quite appealing, especially for people (like me) who have a mindset that’s more nationalist than universalist. I don’t view myself as a citizen of the world; I’m a citizen of a particular nation. If I’m stranded in Elbonia, I’m not going to call the UN for help; I’ll call the American Embassy. It is my nation, not the world, that I expect to defend me against peril. In turn, I’d like to see my fellow citizens make political decisions without excessive interference by foreign countries, even friendly ones but especially adversarial ones (such as Russia). “God gave all men all Earth to love / But, since our hearts are small / Ordained for each one spot should prove / Beloved above all.” Our spot, for us to govern; and I’m sure many citizens of other countries think the same of theirs.

At the same time, much important information relevant to American political debates comes from foreign citizens. Some are people living in the U.S. on temporary work or student visas. Many are in foreign countries; they could be ordinary citizens, political activists, scholars, or politicians. They may be able to convey important facts and ideas about the effects of American foreign policy; or about American actions bearing on world problems (such as climate change or telecommunications technology or artificial intelligence or food production); or about foreign problems that might call for American help.

They might offer some information about the foreign activities of American politicians or business leaders. They might be foreign religious figures who want to exhort their American followers to act consistently with their shared religions. They might be journalists for foreign newspapers who are writing about American politics for a world audience, including an American audience. And they might even be foreign government employees (such as academics, much as Rick and I are employees of an American government) or others who are actually or allegedly linked in some way to a foreign government.

The Court has of course recognized the right of American listeners to receive information from foreign sources; the very first case striking down an Act of Congress on First Amendment grounds, Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965), involved a law that barred the delivery of “communist propaganda” from foreign sources (which were understood as generally linked to foreign governments) unless the recipient affirmatively authorized its delivery. Such a law, the Court held, “is unconstitutional because it … [is] a limitation on the unfettered exercise of the addressee’s First Amendment rights.”

Of course, Rick is right (p. 106) that this isn’t the end of the story; perhaps the analysis should be different for laws focused on election-related speech. And of course in Bluman v. FEC (2012), the Court summarily affirmed, without opinion, Judge Kavanaugh’s decision for a three-judge court upholding a ban on foreign citizens (other than permanent residents) “contribut[ing] to national political parties and outside political groups” or “expressly advocating for and against the election of candidates in U.S. elections.” (One might also note Meese v. Keene (1987), which upheld a requirement that expressive materials funded by foreign governments be labeled “political propaganda.”)

But once one gets beyond the narrow zone of contributions or express advocacy with regard to candidates, to “tightening the foreign campaign spending ban” (p. 102), the matter becomes much more complicated, I think. (The Bluman court expressly noted that it did not decide on any broader restrictions, such as on “issue advocacy and speaking out on issues of public policy.”)

And of course if one really wants to deal with foreign attempts to influence elections, one would indeed have go to much beyond “expressly advocating for and against the election of candidates.” Sharp criticisms of a President or Senator who is running for reelection, after all, may well affect the election, even if they are “susceptible of [a] reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.” Indeed, extensive commentary on issues that are central to an election can affect the election as well, even if it doesn’t mention a particular person, for instance because it “foment[s] American political unrest” (p. 49). And that’s true even when the coverage doesn’t involve advertising, but rather the free distribution of speech that will often have cost money (if only in the form of writers’ salaries) to write or design or videorecord.

No wonder that Rick is at least suggesting (though perhaps not fully endorsing) Congress “proceed[ing] even more broadly and outlaw[ing] all the social media and Internet activity Russians engaged in to influence the 2016 and 2020 elections” (p. 104)—which would presumably extend equally to speech by Swedes or Britons or Israelis or Palestinians that may affect American elections. And while Rick warns that the Supreme Court “could well strike down a law barring foreign entities from running paid ads that stir up unrest on contentious issues such as racial justice, immigration, or gay rights” (p. 105), it seems that he views this as a defect in the Court’s jurisprudence, perhaps one that a more enlightened (because less “libertarian”) Court would correct.

Likewise, Rick has taken the view that it would be a crime for an American campaign to receive “opposition research” on a candidate from a foreign national, on the theory that it is a forbidden contribution of “anything of value” to a campaign. (Again, notice how this doesn’t involve independent expenditures in the sense of buying advertisements for cash.)

So say that, in Summer 2024, when Donald Trump is running again for President, a top Kamala Harris staffer gets a message from a Slovene student at the Wharton School: “I’ve done extensive research on President Trump’s involvement in his Miss Universe organization, and found that Miss Slovenia says that Donald Trump had sexually harassed her. Would you like to get this story?” The staffer says, “I’d love to,” and indeed gets the information, which he then uses in the campaign (and which many American voters presumably find useful).

Under Rick’s theory, it would be a crime for Harris to receive this, on the theory that this is valuable “opposition research.” (It might be possible under this theory that it wouldn’t be a crime if Harris paid for it, since then it wouldn’t be a donation to the campaign, but that would be a very odd rule: We usually frown on paying for incriminating evidence, rather than thinking that paying for such evidence is what makes otherwise criminal conduct legal, plus what would the fair market value of such one-off incriminating evidence even be?) Moreover, if that’s an illegal contribution to a campaign, then presumably the Slovene’s publishing that information online might be treatable as an independent expenditure by a foreign citizen, and thus also constitutionally unprotected.

Rick doesn’t elaborate in detail what he thinks the proper constitutional framework should be for such speech by foreign citizens or organizations (or governments) on matters that might bear, directly or indirectly, on American election campaigns. But I think it would be helpful for us to think about that question, if “the foreign campaign spending ban” is indeed to be tightened, and if a changed Supreme Court were to face a ban on foreign “issue advocacy and speaking out on issues of [American] public policy.” And, again, that’s important not just to define the rights of foreign citizens (including ones who live in America), but also to define the rights of Americans to hear a broad range of views, from all sources, about American political matters.

Now one possible answer that Rick seems to offer (p. 107) is that such speech should be protected if it’s published by foreign “news media” but not by other foreign speakers. (“[D]ifficult as any dispute over an expanded general foreign campaign spending ban might be, any law specifically aimed at shutting down fake news sites run by foreign entities such as Russia’s Peace Data site (described in the last chapter) promises to stir up a hornet’s nest among the Court’s conservatives because of the definition of who counts as the news media.”) As I’ve noted, the Supreme Court has generally held that the Free Press Clause protects “press” in the sense of a technology (the printing press and its technological heirs, which is to say mass media communications) and not “press” in the sense of an industry. And while of course that doctrine might change, any such change would require difficult line-drawing about who is entitled to “free press” rights and who isn’t.

Rick seems to endorse (p. 109) Sonja West’s proposed framework, under which courts would identify the “press” by looking to “four factors”: “(1) recognition by others as the press; (2) holding oneself out as the press; (3) training, education, or experience in journalism; and (4) regularity of publication and established audience.” Presumably an editorial or an article in the Times of London sharply condemning an American political leader who is seeking reelection would thus be “press” and presumably not subject to “shutting down,” whether on “fake news” grounds or campaign spending grounds; but some other online material wouldn’t be “press.”

Yet this seems like a poor basis for a definition that has constitutional significance. Element 1 would involve delegating decisions about who has constitutional rights to unspecified “others,” who will often be self-interested or ideologically motivated. Element 2 would of course just lead advocacy groups to self-label as “news” or “media” or something along those lines. Element 3, if taken at face value, would strip protection from material in opinion magazines, such as The New Republic, National Review, and the like, since much of that speech comes from academics, think tank researchers, policy advocates, and others, who aren’t trained as journalists (and who sometimes write only occasionally, thus lacking much “experience in journalism”). Element 4 would favor established media entities (however biased, deceptive, or foreign-government-influenced) over new upstarts.

Finally, Americans of course routinely comment on foreign politics, including on foreign elections. The U.S. government has long funded speech aimed at influencing citizens of foreign countries. American nongovernmental organizations often engage in such speech as well, on democracy, gay and transgender rights, religious freedom, civil liberties, and much more.

American newspapers, including ones with substantial overseas circulation, comment on foreign countries’ policies, politics, and politicians. And of course American-based search engine companies and social media companies impose their content policies on political speech (as well as other speech) in foreign countries. Perhaps these don’t involve much spending on express advocacy in support of or opposing a particular candidate (I’m not sure), but again it appears that Rick’s suggestion would go beyond that narrow zone.

Now perhaps we should take the view that America and American individuals and organizations should get away with whatever we can along these lines in foreign countries, and at the same time restrict whatever speech we can from foreign countries that would try to influence American political debates. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” like it or not, might be eternal truth; and even if we’ve tried to restrain that principle when it comes to military force, perhaps it makes sense for speech about politics. At the same time, it would be helpful to know if there is some generalizable principle available here, which we would be able to live with when it comes to others restricting Americans’ rights to speak about foreign elections (including about the issues critical to foreign elections) as well to our restricting foreigners’ rights.

In any event, these are just some thoughts on what might be worth considering when it comes to “tightening” existing constraints on foreigners’ speech about American elections.

The post "Should We Regulate Foreign Speech?" appeared first on Reason.com.

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Court Removes No-Weapons Probation Condition for Woman Convicted of Jan. 6 Capitol Trespass

From today’s decision by Judge Trevor McFadden yesterday in U.S. v. Cudd:

Jenny Cudd moves to alter the Court’s judgment against her denying her the right to possess a firearm while on supervision. A restriction on the right to possess a firearm is a discretionary condition of probation, not a mandatory one. See 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b). A discretionary condition can only be imposed by the Court “to the extent that such conditions are reasonably related to the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1) and (a)(2) and to the extent that such conditions involve only such deprivations of liberty or property as are reasonably necessary for the purposes indicated in section 3553(a)(2).”

Cudd contends that because she has a nonviolent misdemeanor conviction, the firearms restriction is not reasonably related to her conviction. More, Cudd maintains she has been threatened for her role in the Capitol on January 6 and needs a weapon to defend herself.

The Government opposes the motion. It argues this condition of supervision is reasonably related to “the need for the sentence imposed to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the office, and the need for the sentence imposed to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.” The Government describes Cudd as courting violence. It highlights that she wore a bulletproof sweatshirt to the Capitol, knew law enforcement was pepper spraying rioters, and yet continued into the building.

The Government also points to several statements Cudd made, including: “[W]hen Pence betrayed us is when we decided to storm the Capitol”; “I’m proud of everything that I was part of today”; and “Yes, I would absolutely do it again.” The Government argues these statements, together with Cudd’s bulletproof sweatshirt, are indicative of violence. And it claims that if Cudd does possess a firearm, she could be a danger to probation officers overseeing her on supervision.

But the Government presented no evidence that Cudd incited anyone to violence. Nor did it present evidence that she participated in violence. She has no prior criminal history. And Cudd’s bullet proof sweatshirt is consistent with her fear of being attacked at the rally preceding her entry into the Capitol. This says nothing about her danger to others.

Cudd credibly claims that she has been threatened and needs protection. At sentencing, the Court and the Government acknowledged the harassment she has faced. And “the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right.” D.C. v. Heller (2008). The Court will not limit that right for a nonviolent misdemeanant who credibly fears for her safety….

Cuddy had been convicted of 18 U.S. Code § 1752(a)(1), “knowingly enter[ing] or remain[ing] in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so,” and sentenced to a $5000 fine and two months’ probation.

Congratulations to Marina Medvin, Cuddy’s lawyer, on her victory on this point.

The post Court Removes No-Weapons Probation Condition for Woman Convicted of Jan. 6 Capitol Trespass appeared first on Reason.com.

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“Should We Regulate Foreign Speech?”

The book is available here, and the symposium posts (from many people) are here. Here’s my post, which is also available here:

Rick Hasen’s book identifies a tremendously serious problem; and it offers only modest solutions. And rightly so, I think: As the book correctly points out, more aggressive restrictions (such as bans on supposedly “misleading” advocacy) will likely be cures that are worse than the disease, however serious the disease might be.

I therefore have little quarrel with many of Rick’s suggestions. But I do want to talk briefly about the problem of foreign speech that may influence election campaigns, which Rick suggests should be even more restricted than it is now (see pp. 102-09).

Protecting American self-government from undue foreign influence is of course quite appealing, especially for people (like me) who have a mindset that’s more nationalist than universalist. I don’t view myself as a citizen of the world; I’m a citizen of a particular nation. If I’m stranded in Elbonia, I’m not going to call the UN for help; I’ll call the American Embassy. It is my nation, not the world, that I expect to defend me against peril. In turn, I’d like to see my fellow citizens make political decisions without excessive interference by foreign countries, even friendly ones but especially adversarial ones (such as Russia). “God gave all men all Earth to love / But, since our hearts are small / Ordained for each one spot should prove / Beloved above all.” Our spot, for us to govern; and I’m sure many citizens of other countries think the same of theirs.

At the same time, much important information relevant to American political debates comes from foreign citizens. Some are people living in the U.S. on temporary work or student visas. Many are in foreign countries; they could be ordinary citizens, political activists, scholars, or politicians. They may be able to convey important facts and ideas about the effects of American foreign policy; or about American actions bearing on world problems (such as climate change or telecommunications technology or artificial intelligence or food production); or about foreign problems that might call for American help.

They might offer some information about the foreign activities of American politicians or business leaders. They might be foreign religious figures who want to exhort their American followers to act consistently with their shared religions. They might be journalists for foreign newspapers who are writing about American politics for a world audience, including an American audience. And they might even be foreign government employees (such as academics, much as Rick and I are employees of an American government) or others who are actually or allegedly linked in some way to a foreign government.

The Court has of course recognized the right of American listeners to receive information from foreign sources; the very first case striking down an Act of Congress on First Amendment grounds, Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965), involved a law that barred the delivery of “communist propaganda” from foreign sources (which were understood as generally linked to foreign governments) unless the recipient affirmatively authorized its delivery. Such a law, the Court held, “is unconstitutional because it … [is] a limitation on the unfettered exercise of the addressee’s First Amendment rights.”

Of course, Rick is right (p. 106) that this isn’t the end of the story; perhaps the analysis should be different for laws focused on election-related speech. And of course in Bluman v. FEC (2012), the Court summarily affirmed, without opinion, Judge Kavanaugh’s decision for a three-judge court upholding a ban on foreign citizens (other than permanent residents) “contribut[ing] to national political parties and outside political groups” or “expressly advocating for and against the election of candidates in U.S. elections.” (One might also note Meese v. Keene (1987), which upheld a requirement that expressive materials funded by foreign governments be labeled “political propaganda.”)

But once one gets beyond the narrow zone of contributions or express advocacy with regard to candidates, to “tightening the foreign campaign spending ban” (p. 102), the matter becomes much more complicated, I think. (The Bluman court expressly noted that it did not decide on any broader restrictions, such as on “issue advocacy and speaking out on issues of public policy.”)

And of course if one really wants to deal with foreign attempts to influence elections, one would indeed have go to much beyond “expressly advocating for and against the election of candidates.” Sharp criticisms of a President or Senator who is running for reelection, after all, may well affect the election, even if they are “susceptible of [a] reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.” Indeed, extensive commentary on issues that are central to an election can affect the election as well, even if it doesn’t mention a particular person, for instance because it “foment[s] American political unrest” (p. 49). And that’s true even when the coverage doesn’t involve advertising, but rather the free distribution of speech that will often have cost money (if only in the form of writers’ salaries) to write or design or videorecord.

No wonder that Rick is at least suggesting (though perhaps not fully endorsing) Congress “proceed[ing] even more broadly and outlaw[ing] all the social media and Internet activity Russians engaged in to influence the 2016 and 2020 elections” (p. 104)—which would presumably extend equally to speech by Swedes or Britons or Israelis or Palestinians that may affect American elections. And while Rick warns that the Supreme Court “could well strike down a law barring foreign entities from running paid ads that stir up unrest on contentious issues such as racial justice, immigration, or gay rights” (p. 105), it seems that he views this as a defect in the Court’s jurisprudence, perhaps one that a more enlightened (because less “libertarian”) Court would correct.

Likewise, Rick has taken the view that it would be a crime for an American campaign to receive “opposition research” on a candidate from a foreign national, on the theory that it is a forbidden contribution of “anything of value” to a campaign. (Again, notice how this doesn’t involve independent expenditures in the sense of buying advertisements for cash.)

So say that, in Summer 2024, when Donald Trump is running again for President, a top Kamala Harris staffer gets a message from a Slovene student at the Wharton School: “I’ve done extensive research on President Trump’s involvement in his Miss Universe organization, and found that Miss Slovenia says that Donald Trump had sexually harassed her. Would you like to get this story?” The staffer says, “I’d love to,” and indeed gets the information, which he then uses in the campaign (and which many American voters presumably find useful).

Under Rick’s theory, it would be a crime for Harris to receive this, on the theory that this is valuable “opposition research.” (It might be possible under this theory that it wouldn’t be a crime if Harris paid for it, since then it wouldn’t be a donation to the campaign, but that would be a very odd rule: We usually frown on paying for incriminating evidence, rather than thinking that paying for such evidence is what makes otherwise criminal conduct legal, plus what would the fair market value of such one-off incriminating evidence even be?) Moreover, if that’s an illegal contribution to a campaign, then presumably the Slovene’s publishing that information online might be treatable as an independent expenditure by a foreign citizen, and thus also constitutionally unprotected.

Rick doesn’t elaborate in detail what he thinks the proper constitutional framework should be for such speech by foreign citizens or organizations (or governments) on matters that might bear, directly or indirectly, on American election campaigns. But I think it would be helpful for us to think about that question, if “the foreign campaign spending ban” is indeed to be tightened, and if a changed Supreme Court were to face a ban on foreign “issue advocacy and speaking out on issues of [American] public policy.” And, again, that’s important not just to define the rights of foreign citizens (including ones who live in America), but also to define the rights of Americans to hear a broad range of views, from all sources, about American political matters.

Now one possible answer that Rick seems to offer (p. 107) is that such speech should be protected if it’s published by foreign “news media” but not by other foreign speakers. (“[D]ifficult as any dispute over an expanded general foreign campaign spending ban might be, any law specifically aimed at shutting down fake news sites run by foreign entities such as Russia’s Peace Data site (described in the last chapter) promises to stir up a hornet’s nest among the Court’s conservatives because of the definition of who counts as the news media.”) As I’ve noted, the Supreme Court has generally held that the Free Press Clause protects “press” in the sense of a technology (the printing press and its technological heirs, which is to say mass media communications) and not “press” in the sense of an industry. And while of course that doctrine might change, any such change would require difficult line-drawing about who is entitled to “free press” rights and who isn’t.

Rick seems to endorse (p. 109) Sonja West’s proposed framework, under which courts would identify the “press” by looking to “four factors”: “(1) recognition by others as the press; (2) holding oneself out as the press; (3) training, education, or experience in journalism; and (4) regularity of publication and established audience.” Presumably an editorial or an article in the Times of London sharply condemning an American political leader who is seeking reelection would thus be “press” and presumably not subject to “shutting down,” whether on “fake news” grounds or campaign spending grounds; but some other online material wouldn’t be “press.”

Yet this seems like a poor basis for a definition that has constitutional significance. Element 1 would involve delegating decisions about who has constitutional rights to unspecified “others,” who will often be self-interested or ideologically motivated. Element 2 would of course just lead advocacy groups to self-label as “news” or “media” or something along those lines. Element 3, if taken at face value, would strip protection from material in opinion magazines, such as The New Republic, National Review, and the like, since much of that speech comes from academics, think tank researchers, policy advocates, and others, who aren’t trained as journalists (and who sometimes write only occasionally, thus lacking much “experience in journalism”). Element 4 would favor established media entities (however biased, deceptive, or foreign-government-influenced) over new upstarts.

Finally, Americans of course routinely comment on foreign politics, including on foreign elections. The U.S. government has long funded speech aimed at influencing citizens of foreign countries. American nongovernmental organizations often engage in such speech as well, on democracy, gay and transgender rights, religious freedom, civil liberties, and much more.

American newspapers, including ones with substantial overseas circulation, comment on foreign countries’ policies, politics, and politicians. And of course American-based search engine companies and social media companies impose their content policies on political speech (as well as other speech) in foreign countries. Perhaps these don’t involve much spending on express advocacy in support of or opposing a particular candidate (I’m not sure), but again it appears that Rick’s suggestion would go beyond that narrow zone.

Now perhaps we should take the view that America and American individuals and organizations should get away with whatever we can along these lines in foreign countries, and at the same time restrict whatever speech we can from foreign countries that would try to influence American political debates. “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” like it or not, might be eternal truth; and even if we’ve tried to restrain that principle when it comes to military force, perhaps it makes sense for speech about politics. At the same time, it would be helpful to know if there is some generalizable principle available here, which we would be able to live with when it comes to others restricting Americans’ rights to speak about foreign elections (including about the issues critical to foreign elections) as well to our restricting foreigners’ rights.

In any event, these are just some thoughts on what might be worth considering when it comes to “tightening” existing constraints on foreigners’ speech about American elections.

The post "Should We Regulate Foreign Speech?" appeared first on Reason.com.

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COVID Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation


jp-valery-hfrDZAXwb5c-unsplash (2)

Inflation has surged across much of the developed world in the past year as COVID-19 lockdowns eased and pent-up demand for goods and services collided with ongoing supply chain snafus.

But inflation is running higher in the United States than just about anywhere else right now. Why’s that? According to a new paper from four economists at the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, it’s because the American government was relatively more generous during the pandemic, borrowing and spending trillions of dollars to not only fund COVID-19 relief efforts but to line the pockets of Americans with direct payments that enlarged the money supply and overheated the economy.

“Inflation rates in the United States and other developed economies have closely tracked each other historically,” the economists write in an analysis published this week. “However, since the first half of 2021, U.S. inflation has increasingly outpaced inflation in other developed countries. Estimates suggest that fiscal support measures designed to counteract the severity of the pandemic’s economic effect may have contributed to this divergence.”

Inflation in the U.S. hit an annualized rate of 7.9 percent in February (data for March will be released by the Bureau for Labor Statistics next week), a 40-year high. Meanwhile, inflation in similar countries like France (3.6 percent), Germany (5.1 percent), and the United Kingdom (5.5 percent) is significantly lower, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a consortium of 38 rich-world governments. (Across the OECD as a whole, the average annual inflation rate is about the same as the U.S., but that’s due to the influence of outliers like Argentina—where prices are up over 52 percent in the past 12 months.)

February’s global price data are not merely a snapshot, but indicative of a worrying trend. The Pew Research Center noted in November of last year that prices in the United States were rising more quickly than almost anywhere else. Between the third quarter of 2019 (the last full economic quarter before COVID-19 was first identified) and the third quarter of 2021, the U.S. inflation rate climbed by 3.58 percentage points—a larger change than in all but two other countries of the 46 nations included in the study.

Governments all over the world spent heavily to combat the pandemic, of course, but few handed out cash directly to citizens as the American government did. The four Federal Reserve researchers track sharp increases in “inflation-adjusted disposable personal income”—in layman’s terms, excess spending cash—reported by American households over the past two years. “Throughout 2020 and 2021, U.S. households experienced significantly higher increases in their disposable income relative to their OECD peers,” they write.

About $817 billion in direct payments to American households were delivered in three rounds during the pandemic, according to the COVID Money Tracker run by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for lower deficits. The first round of stimulus checks was worth $1,200 per person and was approved as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020. Another round of $600 checks was distributed starting in December of that year.

But the big blow came in early 2021, when the Biden administration pushed through a round of $1,400 checks as part of the American Recovery Plan, passed by Congress in March 2021.

Though each round of direct checks had slightly different parameters for determining who would get the payments, much of that $817 billion landed in the bank accounts of people who had never lost their jobs and were well above the poverty line. Households earning as much as $160,000 in joint income were eligible for the final round of direct payments disbursed during the first half of 2021—and many progressives in Congress thought the cutoff should have been even higher.

We’re now reaping what Congress sowed. All that excess cash is chasing the same number of goods. That’s a recipe for inflation straight out of any economics textbook. The four economists conclude that “U.S. income transfers may have contributed to an increase in inflation of about 3 percentage points by the fourth quarter of 2021.”

This isn’t a novel idea, of course. Larry Summers, one of the Obama administration’s top economic advisers, was warning about rising inflation more than a year ago. Passing another stimulus bill in the spring of 2021, Summers warned in a Washington Post op-ed, “will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” Other top economists, including a former chairman of the International Monetary Fund, offered similar warnings. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress did not listen, and now here we are.

The value of this Federal Reserve analysis is that it does not look forward in time and try to project what will happen, but reviews existing data to tell what did in fact happen. Putting more money directly in Americans’ pockets and bank accounts caused inflation to get worse than it otherwise would have been.

In fairness, the economists also point out that a less robust response to the pandemic may have caused a different kind of economic pain. “Without these spending measures,” they write, “the economy might have tipped into outright deflation and slower economic growth, the consequences of which would have been harder to manage.”

Any serious attempt to grapple with America’s current bout of inflation must be aware of that possible alternate reality—the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

But that doesn’t absolve the federal government—from the White House to Congress to the Federal Reserve—of its role in worsening this mess. The whole world is suffering through a period of high inflation, but American policy makers added a uniquely high amount of fuel to the fire.

The post COVID Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation appeared first on Reason.com.

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COVID Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation


jp-valery-hfrDZAXwb5c-unsplash (2)

Inflation has surged across much of the developed world in the past year as COVID-19 lockdowns eased and pent-up demand for goods and services collided with ongoing supply chain snafus.

But inflation is running higher in the United States than just about anywhere else right now. Why’s that? According to a new paper from four economists at the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, it’s because the American government was relatively more generous during the pandemic, borrowing and spending trillions of dollars to not only fund COVID-19 relief efforts but to line the pockets of Americans with direct payments that enlarged the money supply and overheated the economy.

“Inflation rates in the United States and other developed economies have closely tracked each other historically,” the economists write in an analysis published this week. “However, since the first half of 2021, U.S. inflation has increasingly outpaced inflation in other developed countries. Estimates suggest that fiscal support measures designed to counteract the severity of the pandemic’s economic effect may have contributed to this divergence.”

Inflation in the U.S. hit an annualized rate of 7.9 percent in February (data for March will be released by the Bureau for Labor Statistics next week), a 40-year high. Meanwhile, inflation in similar countries like France (3.6 percent), Germany (5.1 percent), and the United Kingdom (5.5 percent) is significantly lower, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a consortium of 38 rich-world governments. (Across the OECD as a whole, the average annual inflation rate is about the same as the U.S., but that’s due to the influence of outliers like Argentina—where prices are up over 52 percent in the past 12 months.)

February’s global price data are not merely a snapshot, but indicative of a worrying trend. The Pew Research Center noted in November of last year that prices in the United States were rising more quickly than almost anywhere else. Between the third quarter of 2019 (the last full economic quarter before COVID-19 was first identified) and the third quarter of 2021, the U.S. inflation rate climbed by 3.58 percentage points—a larger change than in all but two other countries of the 46 nations included in the study.

Governments all over the world spent heavily to combat the pandemic, of course, but few handed out cash directly to citizens as the American government did. The four Federal Reserve researchers track sharp increases in “inflation-adjusted disposable personal income”—in layman’s terms, excess spending cash—reported by American households over the past two years. “Throughout 2020 and 2021, U.S. households experienced significantly higher increases in their disposable income relative to their OECD peers,” they write.

About $817 billion in direct payments to American households were delivered in three rounds during the pandemic, according to the COVID Money Tracker run by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for lower deficits. The first round of stimulus checks was worth $1,200 per person and was approved as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March 2020. Another round of $600 checks was distributed starting in December of that year.

But the big blow came in early 2021, when the Biden administration pushed through a round of $1,400 checks as part of the American Recovery Plan, passed by Congress in March 2021.

Though each round of direct checks had slightly different parameters for determining who would get the payments, much of that $817 billion landed in the bank accounts of people who had never lost their jobs and were well above the poverty line. Households earning as much as $160,000 in joint income were eligible for the final round of direct payments disbursed during the first half of 2021—and many progressives in Congress thought the cutoff should have been even higher.

We’re now reaping what Congress sowed. All that excess cash is chasing the same number of goods. That’s a recipe for inflation straight out of any economics textbook. The four economists conclude that “U.S. income transfers may have contributed to an increase in inflation of about 3 percentage points by the fourth quarter of 2021.”

This isn’t a novel idea, of course. Larry Summers, one of the Obama administration’s top economic advisers, was warning about rising inflation more than a year ago. Passing another stimulus bill in the spring of 2021, Summers warned in a Washington Post op-ed, “will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” Other top economists, including a former chairman of the International Monetary Fund, offered similar warnings. The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress did not listen, and now here we are.

The value of this Federal Reserve analysis is that it does not look forward in time and try to project what will happen, but reviews existing data to tell what did in fact happen. Putting more money directly in Americans’ pockets and bank accounts caused inflation to get worse than it otherwise would have been.

In fairness, the economists also point out that a less robust response to the pandemic may have caused a different kind of economic pain. “Without these spending measures,” they write, “the economy might have tipped into outright deflation and slower economic growth, the consequences of which would have been harder to manage.”

Any serious attempt to grapple with America’s current bout of inflation must be aware of that possible alternate reality—the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

But that doesn’t absolve the federal government—from the White House to Congress to the Federal Reserve—of its role in worsening this mess. The whole world is suffering through a period of high inflation, but American policy makers added a uniquely high amount of fuel to the fire.

The post COVID Stimulus Checks Worsened Inflation appeared first on Reason.com.

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Alabama Makes It a Felony To Offer Transition-Related Care for Trans Kids


dreamstime_l_244902089

Taking templates from Texas, Florida, and other Republican-led states, Alabama seems to be embracing all the worst anti-LGBTQ trends—and in some cases taking them one step further. This week, the state passed a bill making it a felony to provide transition-related medical care to transgender minors and mandating prison time for those who provide what’s come to be known as “gender-affirming care.”

Under the bill—S.B. 184, passed by the Alabama House on Thursday after clearing the state’s Senate in February—providing hormone therapy or puberty blockers to someone under age 18 would be a Class C felony, punishable by at least one year in prison and up to 10 years. “The legislation also bans gender-affirming surgeries on transgender youth, though that is already not standard practice among doctors,” notes Politico.

S.B. 184 also states that “no nurse, counselor, teacher, principal, or other administrative official at a public or private school attended by a minor shall…withhold from a minor’s parent or legal guardian information related to a minor’s perception that his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

The bill is now with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has not indicated whether she will sign it into law.

Another measure (H.B. 322) passed by Alabama lawmakers on Thursday would ban transgender students from using sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. And an amendment to the bill limits school-based discussions about gender identity or sexual orientation (in the manner of a recent Florida law that opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill).

“What this amendment does it just prohibits classroom instruction or discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through fifth grade,” said state Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R–Trussville), who introduced the amendment.

H.B. 322 has also been delivered to the governor.

Laws like these are flooding Republican-controlled legislatures right now, notes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has identified variations on the Alabama gender care measure in 19 states (setting them up for a conflict with the U.S. Department of Justice).

“Last summer a federal court blocked Arkansas from enforcing a law that made it the first state to prohibit doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or sex reassignment surgery to anyone under 18 years old,” notes The New York Times. And “in Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation last month blocking some forms of gender-affirming care for minors. Tennessee legislators also approved a bill this year that would ban providing hormone-related medication to children before puberty. But those measures stop short of being considered felony-level offenses.”

“A bill in Idaho that would have also made providing gender-affirming care to transgender children a felony passed out of the House last month but was blocked by Republican Senate leaders, who said the policy ‘undermines parental rights,'” notes Politico. (More on that here.)

Meanwhile, in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton has directed authorities to start investigating parents who approve gender-affirming care for their children, calling it a form of child abuse.

Following in the footsteps of a Florida law limiting instruction around sexual orientation and gender identity, Ohio and Georgia have introduced similar measures.

The Ohio measure would apply to private as well as public schools. “This is not a bill that supports parents’ rights to control and influence their children’s education. It is the exact opposite—it’s just coming from social conservatives rather than progressive gender and race activists,” writes Reason‘s Scott Shackford.

These measures come alongside ongoing attacks on transgender students using facilities that correspond to their gender identities. Such measures are currently active in three states (Minnesota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota) aside from Alabama, according to the ACLU.

The ACLU, ACLU of Alabama, Lambda Legal, and the Transgender Law Center have already vowed to fight Alabama’s transgender medical care measure should it become law. “If Alabama lawmakers insist on passing this cruel, dangerous, and unconstitutional legislation into law, the state will immediately have a lawsuit to deal with,” Carl S. Charles, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement.

“Our representatives have been hearing from medical experts, parents, transgender youth, and other advocates for the past three years in an attempt to stop this harmful bill from passing. But despite this strong opposition, the Legislature seems determined to move ahead with this shameful effort to prevent parents and kids from deciding the best course of treatment for themselves,” said Kaitlin Welborn, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Alabama. “If the state moves forward in passing this unconstitutional bill, we’ll see them in court.”

FREE MINDS

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 53–47 vote, the Senate voted to confirm Jackson, who will become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She will be sworn in this summer after Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.

Most Senate Republicans opposed Jackson’s nomination. But Democrats were joined by GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah), and Lisa Murkowski (Ala.) in voting to confirm.

“While GOP senators had every right to oppose Jackson, the reasons many of them gave were dubious, at best,” notes law professor and Volokh Conspiracy blogger Ilya Somin. During the confirmation hearings, “Senate Republicans opted to zero in on topics that carry political currency and play well with the cameras but do little to undermine or inform how Jackson would preserve constitutional rights from the country’s highest court,” wrote Reason‘s Billy Binion last month.

See more of Reason‘s coverage of Jackson and her confirmation hearings here.

FREE MARKETS

MiamiCoin’s mixed start. Miami was the first U.S. city to try offering and making money from its own digital currency, dubbed MiamiCoin. So far, the results are mixed, The Wall Street Journal reports. The city has earned about $5.25 million in revenue from the project. But “buyers of the digital token have had a rockier experience: MiamiCoin’s value has fallen by half since it made its debut last summer.” And NYCCoin has seen a similar descent:

MiamiCoin began trading at around half a cent on Aug. 26 and was a little more than a quarter of a cent as of April 5, according to CoinMarketCap. The coin’s value briefly rocketed to 5 cents twice, in its first month of trading.

NYCCoin has also fallen from close to half a cent at the beginning of February to about a quarter of a cent, according to CoinMarketCap.

FOLLOW-UP

U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden issues another ruling friendly to a January 6 defendant, after finding a man who entered the Capitol and was charged by the feds not guilty. “McFadden issued an order on Thursday granting florist Jenny Cudd’s request to lift a term of her probation that forbade her to own or possess any ‘firearm, ammunition, destructive device, or dangerous weapon,'” reports Politico:

The judge’s ruling was a rebuke to prosecutors, who opposed the change, and it was the latest setback for prosecutors dealt by McFadden, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision further cements the judge’s reputation as the most skeptical member of the D.C. District Court bench about the stance prosecutors have taken in the wake of the Capitol riot.

McFadden’s latest decision is here.

QUICK HITS

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has upheld President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers because the employees bringing the lawsuit did not first go through the federal government’s internal complaint process. “The plaintiffs could have challenged an agency’s proposed action against them before filing this suit and certainly before getting vaccinated,” wrote the judge.

• In defense of online anonymity.

• Minnesota’s attorney general says the cop who killed Amir Locke was just defending himself. But Locke was also just defending himself.

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is using migrants as political pawns again.

• “The economies around trauma are both bizarre and decadent,” writes Jay Caspian Kang in an excellent critique of certain elite university policies.

• New research explores how the saturated fatty acids found in butter and full-fat dairy may be beneficial to human health. Called C15:0, it “has been linked to health benefits such as lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease,” reports Insider.

• The Knox County District Attorney’s Office is blaming a driver killed by police for getting hit by the cops who were driving up to 90 miles per hour without their sirens on.

• New York is backtracking on criminal justice reform.

• Starting salaries for Walmart truck drivers are now between $95,000 and $110,000, as the industry struggles to attract and retain truckers.

• The Tennessee Senate has voted to make ivermectin available over the counter.

• “Artificially restricting the opportunity of the students on the top will never truly help those on the bottom,” writes Freddie deBoer in a post condemning school districts that forbid eighth-graders from taking algebra.

• “Buses-as-flights”:

The post Alabama Makes It a Felony To Offer Transition-Related Care for Trans Kids appeared first on Reason.com.

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Alabama Makes It a Felony To Offer Transition-Related Care for Trans Kids


dreamstime_l_244902089

Taking templates from Texas, Florida, and other Republican-led states, Alabama seems to be embracing all the worst anti-LGBTQ trends—and in some cases taking them one step further. This week, the state passed a bill making it a felony to provide transition-related medical care to transgender minors and mandating prison time for those who provide what’s come to be known as “gender-affirming care.”

Under the bill—S.B. 184, passed by the Alabama House on Thursday after clearing the state’s Senate in February—providing hormone therapy or puberty blockers to someone under age 18 would be a Class C felony, punishable by at least one year in prison and up to 10 years. “The legislation also bans gender-affirming surgeries on transgender youth, though that is already not standard practice among doctors,” notes Politico.

S.B. 184 also states that “no nurse, counselor, teacher, principal, or other administrative official at a public or private school attended by a minor shall…withhold from a minor’s parent or legal guardian information related to a minor’s perception that his or her gender or sex is inconsistent with his or her sex.”

The bill is now with Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has not indicated whether she will sign it into law.

Another measure (H.B. 322) passed by Alabama lawmakers on Thursday would ban transgender students from using sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity. And an amendment to the bill limits school-based discussions about gender identity or sexual orientation (in the manner of a recent Florida law that opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill).

“What this amendment does it just prohibits classroom instruction or discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through fifth grade,” said state Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R–Trussville), who introduced the amendment.

H.B. 322 has also been delivered to the governor.

Laws like these are flooding Republican-controlled legislatures right now, notes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU has identified variations on the Alabama gender care measure in 19 states (setting them up for a conflict with the U.S. Department of Justice).

“Last summer a federal court blocked Arkansas from enforcing a law that made it the first state to prohibit doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or sex reassignment surgery to anyone under 18 years old,” notes The New York Times. And “in Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation last month blocking some forms of gender-affirming care for minors. Tennessee legislators also approved a bill this year that would ban providing hormone-related medication to children before puberty. But those measures stop short of being considered felony-level offenses.”

“A bill in Idaho that would have also made providing gender-affirming care to transgender children a felony passed out of the House last month but was blocked by Republican Senate leaders, who said the policy ‘undermines parental rights,'” notes Politico. (More on that here.)

Meanwhile, in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton has directed authorities to start investigating parents who approve gender-affirming care for their children, calling it a form of child abuse.

Following in the footsteps of a Florida law limiting instruction around sexual orientation and gender identity, Ohio and Georgia have introduced similar measures.

The Ohio measure would apply to private as well as public schools. “This is not a bill that supports parents’ rights to control and influence their children’s education. It is the exact opposite—it’s just coming from social conservatives rather than progressive gender and race activists,” writes Reason‘s Scott Shackford.

These measures come alongside ongoing attacks on transgender students using facilities that correspond to their gender identities. Such measures are currently active in three states (Minnesota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota) aside from Alabama, according to the ACLU.

The ACLU, ACLU of Alabama, Lambda Legal, and the Transgender Law Center have already vowed to fight Alabama’s transgender medical care measure should it become law. “If Alabama lawmakers insist on passing this cruel, dangerous, and unconstitutional legislation into law, the state will immediately have a lawsuit to deal with,” Carl S. Charles, a senior attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement.

“Our representatives have been hearing from medical experts, parents, transgender youth, and other advocates for the past three years in an attempt to stop this harmful bill from passing. But despite this strong opposition, the Legislature seems determined to move ahead with this shameful effort to prevent parents and kids from deciding the best course of treatment for themselves,” said Kaitlin Welborn, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Alabama. “If the state moves forward in passing this unconstitutional bill, we’ll see them in court.”

FREE MINDS

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 53–47 vote, the Senate voted to confirm Jackson, who will become the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She will be sworn in this summer after Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.

Most Senate Republicans opposed Jackson’s nomination. But Democrats were joined by GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah), and Lisa Murkowski (Ala.) in voting to confirm.

“While GOP senators had every right to oppose Jackson, the reasons many of them gave were dubious, at best,” notes law professor and Volokh Conspiracy blogger Ilya Somin. During the confirmation hearings, “Senate Republicans opted to zero in on topics that carry political currency and play well with the cameras but do little to undermine or inform how Jackson would preserve constitutional rights from the country’s highest court,” wrote Reason‘s Billy Binion last month.

See more of Reason‘s coverage of Jackson and her confirmation hearings here.

FREE MARKETS

MiamiCoin’s mixed start. Miami was the first U.S. city to try offering and making money from its own digital currency, dubbed MiamiCoin. So far, the results are mixed, The Wall Street Journal reports. The city has earned about $5.25 million in revenue from the project. But “buyers of the digital token have had a rockier experience: MiamiCoin’s value has fallen by half since it made its debut last summer.” And NYCCoin has seen a similar descent:

MiamiCoin began trading at around half a cent on Aug. 26 and was a little more than a quarter of a cent as of April 5, according to CoinMarketCap. The coin’s value briefly rocketed to 5 cents twice, in its first month of trading.

NYCCoin has also fallen from close to half a cent at the beginning of February to about a quarter of a cent, according to CoinMarketCap.

FOLLOW-UP

U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden issues another ruling friendly to a January 6 defendant, after finding a man who entered the Capitol and was charged by the feds not guilty. “McFadden issued an order on Thursday granting florist Jenny Cudd’s request to lift a term of her probation that forbade her to own or possess any ‘firearm, ammunition, destructive device, or dangerous weapon,'” reports Politico:

The judge’s ruling was a rebuke to prosecutors, who opposed the change, and it was the latest setback for prosecutors dealt by McFadden, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision further cements the judge’s reputation as the most skeptical member of the D.C. District Court bench about the stance prosecutors have taken in the wake of the Capitol riot.

McFadden’s latest decision is here.

QUICK HITS

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has upheld President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers because the employees bringing the lawsuit did not first go through the federal government’s internal complaint process. “The plaintiffs could have challenged an agency’s proposed action against them before filing this suit and certainly before getting vaccinated,” wrote the judge.

• In defense of online anonymity.

• Minnesota’s attorney general says the cop who killed Amir Locke was just defending himself. But Locke was also just defending himself.

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is using migrants as political pawns again.

• “The economies around trauma are both bizarre and decadent,” writes Jay Caspian Kang in an excellent critique of certain elite university policies.

• New research explores how the saturated fatty acids found in butter and full-fat dairy may be beneficial to human health. Called C15:0, it “has been linked to health benefits such as lower risk of heart disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease,” reports Insider.

• The Knox County District Attorney’s Office is blaming a driver killed by police for getting hit by the cops who were driving up to 90 miles per hour without their sirens on.

• New York is backtracking on criminal justice reform.

• Starting salaries for Walmart truck drivers are now between $95,000 and $110,000, as the industry struggles to attract and retain truckers.

• The Tennessee Senate has voted to make ivermectin available over the counter.

• “Artificially restricting the opportunity of the students on the top will never truly help those on the bottom,” writes Freddie deBoer in a post condemning school districts that forbid eighth-graders from taking algebra.

• “Buses-as-flights”:

The post Alabama Makes It a Felony To Offer Transition-Related Care for Trans Kids appeared first on Reason.com.

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Conservatives Say They Care About the Constitution. Until They Talk About Criminal Justice.


jmpphotos051689

GOP senators who are attacking President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court pick seem weirdly unaware of how our justice system works. By focusing in part on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s former role as a criminal defense attorney, they act as if it’s wrong to provide a defense to people accused of a crime—and that if the government levels a charge, it must be right.

Hey, if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear—or something like that. “Like any attorney who has been in any kind of practice, they are going to have to answer for the clients they represented and the arguments they made,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said in reference to Jackson and other Biden nominees. Apparently, defense attorneys should only defend choirboys.

Yet I guarantee if Hawley—known for his fist pump in support of Jan. 6 protestors at the U.S. Capitol—became the target of an overzealous prosecutor who accused him of inciting an insurrection, he’d be happy to have a competent defense attorney to advocate on his behalf. That attorney shouldn’t be forever stained for defending someone as loathsome as Hawley.

These hearings remind me of how difficult it is to have a calm debate about criminal-justice policy—and how tilted our system is on the side of the government. As the Christian Science Monitor pointed out, if confirmed Jackson will be the nation’s first Supreme Court justice to have served as a public defender, with Thurgood Marshall being the last justice to have criminal defense experience.

Marshall was born when Theodore Roosevelt was president and retired 31 years ago. A study last year by the libertarian Cato Institute found the Trump administration’s judicial appointments tilted in favor of prosecutors over those who represented individuals by a 10-to-one margin. Only 14 percent of the liberal Obama administration’s appointees defended individuals. Most judges strive to be fair, but their backgrounds color their worldview.

That brings us to district attorneys. Most people believe their role is to secure convictions, but that’s not entirely the case. “The primary duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice within the bounds of the law, not merely to convict,” the American Bar Association explains. They are required to “protect the innocent and convict the guilty, consider the interests of victims and witnesses, and respect the constitutional and legal rights of all persons.”

In reality, DAs are ambitious political animals. As the Jackson hearings exemplify, it’s much easier to get confirmed as a judge or elected prosecutor by playing the tough-on-crime card for the obvious reason that the public is fearful of crime—especially now, as long-falling crime rates are headed in the wrong direction. It’s tougher for a DA to succeed by pledging a commitment to justice and balance.

For decades, prosecutors have been closely aligned with police unions, which partially explains why it’s been so hard to hold accountable officers who engage even in egregious misbehavior or who are overly aggressive. Traditionally, it’s been difficult for a district attorney to win an election without the backing of those unions, which represent rank-and-file officers.

That spurred a well-funded movement to begin electing “progressive prosecutors”—mainly in big, liberal cities with large populations of poorer people who have been on the receiving end of our justice system. Unfortunately, these DAs have gone too far in the other direction.

For instance, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón initially banned “prosecutors from seeking the death penalty or life sentences without the possibility of parole, while also severely limiting the way prosecutors could use sentencing enhancements,” the Los Angeles Times reported. He also refused to sentence juveniles as adults.

He’s changed course amid a backlash. But by imposing hard-and-fast policies rather than seeking out the just response in each case, Gascón’s approach is the mirror image of a Neanderthal prosecutor who was hard wired to always be tough. Likewise, San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin is accused of refusing to prosecute many serious crimes that are turning his city into a scene from Road Warrior.

Traditional prosecutors have overcharged people, winked at police abuse and filled the prisons with people who ought not to be there. But these liberal prosecutors have pursued an ideological agenda that has failed to consider legitimate public fears of dangerous criminals. They forget economist Adam Smith’s quotation, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

Our nation is finally—albeit clumsily—debating justice policy. Even in law-and-order Orange County, the DA’s race is pitting two candidates, incumbent Todd Spitzer and challenger Pete Hardin, who at least claim to seek some middle ground. Their race isn’t more edifying than the Jackson hearings, as they prefer to trade race- and sex-related allegations rather than focus on the fundamentals of the job.

Maybe someday soon, DAs and justices can apply to the justice system the Goldilocks Principle—not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

The post Conservatives Say They Care About the Constitution. Until They Talk About Criminal Justice. appeared first on Reason.com.

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Conservatives Say They Care About the Constitution. Until They Talk About Criminal Justice.


jmpphotos051689

GOP senators who are attacking President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court pick seem weirdly unaware of how our justice system works. By focusing in part on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s former role as a criminal defense attorney, they act as if it’s wrong to provide a defense to people accused of a crime—and that if the government levels a charge, it must be right.

Hey, if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear—or something like that. “Like any attorney who has been in any kind of practice, they are going to have to answer for the clients they represented and the arguments they made,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said in reference to Jackson and other Biden nominees. Apparently, defense attorneys should only defend choirboys.

Yet I guarantee if Hawley—known for his fist pump in support of Jan. 6 protestors at the U.S. Capitol—became the target of an overzealous prosecutor who accused him of inciting an insurrection, he’d be happy to have a competent defense attorney to advocate on his behalf. That attorney shouldn’t be forever stained for defending someone as loathsome as Hawley.

These hearings remind me of how difficult it is to have a calm debate about criminal-justice policy—and how tilted our system is on the side of the government. As the Christian Science Monitor pointed out, if confirmed Jackson will be the nation’s first Supreme Court justice to have served as a public defender, with Thurgood Marshall being the last justice to have criminal defense experience.

Marshall was born when Theodore Roosevelt was president and retired 31 years ago. A study last year by the libertarian Cato Institute found the Trump administration’s judicial appointments tilted in favor of prosecutors over those who represented individuals by a 10-to-one margin. Only 14 percent of the liberal Obama administration’s appointees defended individuals. Most judges strive to be fair, but their backgrounds color their worldview.

That brings us to district attorneys. Most people believe their role is to secure convictions, but that’s not entirely the case. “The primary duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice within the bounds of the law, not merely to convict,” the American Bar Association explains. They are required to “protect the innocent and convict the guilty, consider the interests of victims and witnesses, and respect the constitutional and legal rights of all persons.”

In reality, DAs are ambitious political animals. As the Jackson hearings exemplify, it’s much easier to get confirmed as a judge or elected prosecutor by playing the tough-on-crime card for the obvious reason that the public is fearful of crime—especially now, as long-falling crime rates are headed in the wrong direction. It’s tougher for a DA to succeed by pledging a commitment to justice and balance.

For decades, prosecutors have been closely aligned with police unions, which partially explains why it’s been so hard to hold accountable officers who engage even in egregious misbehavior or who are overly aggressive. Traditionally, it’s been difficult for a district attorney to win an election without the backing of those unions, which represent rank-and-file officers.

That spurred a well-funded movement to begin electing “progressive prosecutors”—mainly in big, liberal cities with large populations of poorer people who have been on the receiving end of our justice system. Unfortunately, these DAs have gone too far in the other direction.

For instance, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón initially banned “prosecutors from seeking the death penalty or life sentences without the possibility of parole, while also severely limiting the way prosecutors could use sentencing enhancements,” the Los Angeles Times reported. He also refused to sentence juveniles as adults.

He’s changed course amid a backlash. But by imposing hard-and-fast policies rather than seeking out the just response in each case, Gascón’s approach is the mirror image of a Neanderthal prosecutor who was hard wired to always be tough. Likewise, San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin is accused of refusing to prosecute many serious crimes that are turning his city into a scene from Road Warrior.

Traditional prosecutors have overcharged people, winked at police abuse and filled the prisons with people who ought not to be there. But these liberal prosecutors have pursued an ideological agenda that has failed to consider legitimate public fears of dangerous criminals. They forget economist Adam Smith’s quotation, “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

Our nation is finally—albeit clumsily—debating justice policy. Even in law-and-order Orange County, the DA’s race is pitting two candidates, incumbent Todd Spitzer and challenger Pete Hardin, who at least claim to seek some middle ground. Their race isn’t more edifying than the Jackson hearings, as they prefer to trade race- and sex-related allegations rather than focus on the fundamentals of the job.

Maybe someday soon, DAs and justices can apply to the justice system the Goldilocks Principle—not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

The post Conservatives Say They Care About the Constitution. Until They Talk About Criminal Justice. appeared first on Reason.com.

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Price Controls Would Make a Dire Economic Situation Worse


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History has a way of repeating itself. Or maybe it’s that people cling to defunct beliefs, stubbornly refusing to learn from experience. Such stubbornness is on display when pundits, legislators, and President Joe Biden blame inflation on corporate “greed.” The fix, they claim, is price controls. But such controls would only bring further economic calamity.

To explain hikes in the prices of meat, poultry, and energy, many politicians and pundits say we must look no further than cold-hearted corporate CEOs padding their bottom lines at the expense of ordinary Americans. Companies today are allegedly so greedy that they use the pandemic as an excuse to charge extortionate prices. For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that “giant corporations who say, wow, a lot of talk about high prices and inflation. This is a chance to get in there and not only pass along costs, but to inflate prices beyond that and just engage in a little straightforward price gouging.”

Playing along with this blame game is Biden, who asserts that “oil and gas companies shouldn’t pad their profits at the expense of hardworking Americans.”

Biden is not the first president to demonstrate ignorance of the complex factors that determine prices at the pump. His and others’ grandstanding complaints about high prices—especially as they rise during inflationary times—aren’t novel. George Mason University’s Don Boudreaux recently highlighted a still-relevant observation from 1976 by the late UCLA economist Armen Alchian:

“Direct attacks on the symptoms known to flow from inflation are politically convenient. As inflation occurs, politicians and the public blame businessmen and producers for raising prices and mulcting the public….The so-called shortage of gasoline and energy in the United States was precisely and only such a political attack.”

Today, we should remember Alchian’s sobering description of what happened when economically illiterate politicians attempted to control inflation by imposing price controls:

“Inflate the money stock; when prices rise, impose price controls to correct the situation. These controls lead to shortages which ‘require’ government intervention to assure appropriate use of the limited supply and to allocate it and even to control and nationalize the production of energy. The powers of political authorities are increased; the open society is suppressed.”

The unrealistic assumptions underpinning the logic of those who argue for price controls are quite amazing. First, hikes in prices apparently have no impact on consumers’ demand for goods. That’s because monopolies are supposedly everywhere, and most goods—we are to believe—are so indispensable to consumers that we will buy nearly all of them at any price.

In addition, the price controllers bizarrely assume that when faced with bans on price increases, producers (who are also coping with inflation and other challenges) will keep supplying the same goods to market. So, the only impact price controls are said to have is to decrease the amounts consumers pay, while having no effect on consumption or production.

This belief, of course, is nonsense. When prices rise, consumers reduce their demands for goods (unless inflation expectations come into play, and consumers increase purchases today to avoid even higher prices tomorrow). Also, companies prohibited by law from raising their prices will reduce their supplies, thus creating the shortages Alchian warned about.

To believe that inflation is the product of corporate greed requires even more obliviousness to reality. Inflation is truly a general and ongoing increase of all prices, including wages (which are the price of our labor). This reality means that all companies would have to be getting greedier simultaneously, and that all workers are, at the same time, overcome with similar avarice.

On that note, if corporate greed is sufficient to allow companies to get away with raising prices, why isn’t it sufficient to allow them to resist demands for higher wages?

The fact is that inflation isn’t caused by corporate greed. Readers of this column know by now that it’s caused by government’s excessive deficit spending, fueled in part by loose monetary policy. Therefore, getting rid of inflation requires an increase of interest rates theoretically higher than the current inflation, along with some overdue fiscal discipline. Reforms like deregulation that promote faster growth in the supply of goods and services would also help.

What we don’t need, but what we’ll likely get, is more government spending and more debt accumulation. The result will only fuel the inflation fire. Let’s hope that we at least avoid making matters even worse with price controls.

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