Category: reason

More Than A Dozen States Are Trying To Nullify Federal Gun Control


8111919_thumb

With President Joe Biden issuing a flurry of executive actions last week to strengthen federal gun laws, state representatives across the country are working in the opposite direction, taking a page from the playbook of immigration activists by advancing legislation that would make their enforcement illegal. On April 6, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed the first gun control nullification bill into law.

“Nullifying unconstitutional, federal laws is both legal and it’s also the right thing to do,” says Anthony Sabatini, a Republican lawmaker and member of the Florida House of Representatives. “It’s silly to sit around and wait for something you know is unconstitutional,” he tells Reason. “It’s time to stand up and fight back. And the methods that we need to use are the ones already being used by the left.”

In 1987, Oregon passed a law prohibiting state and local law enforcement from using public resources to arrest or detain people whose only crime was being in the country illegally. Since then, hundreds of other jurisdictions have passed similar laws, becoming so-called sanctuary cities.

Conservative activists are employing the same strategy. While Arizona is the only state where such a bill has become law, elected officials have introduced similar bills in more than a dozen statehouses. Montana‘s legislature has approved a bill that is now awaiting signature or veto from the governor; the Arkansas Senate and the Missouri, South Carolina, and West Virginia houses have each passed such bills; committees in Texas, Alabama, and New Hampshire have bills that are moving forward in their state legislatures; and similar bills have been introduced in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa, and Louisiana.

“We know this stuff has been working and the right can continue to complain about the things that the left is successful at, or they can look at it, learn from it, and replicate it,” Michael Boldin, the founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, tells Reason.

Sabatini is cosponsoring a bill in Florida called the “Second Amendment Preservation Act” that would prohibit any employee of the state of Florida from enforcing, or attempting to enforce “any federal act, law, executive order, administrative order, court order, rule, regulation, statute, or ordinance infringing on the right to keep and bear arms ensured by the Second Amendment.” The bill says that any state employee who assists in enforcing federal gun control laws would be terminated and never again be allowed to work for the state of Florida.

Defying federal law is something that a majority of states already do in one way or another, by becoming immigration sanctuaries or through the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs that federal law still deems illegal.

“In terms of the method it’s identical,” says Sabatini. In sanctuary cities, “they stopped reporting to or dealing with I.C.E., and that’s basically what we’re doing.”

Boldin says that if states refuse to cooperate with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), then federal gun control becomes difficult to enforce.

“The ATF only has about 5,500 employees for the whole country. About a third of them are in administration, and that means they don’t have the manpower or resources to enforce federal gun control on their own,” he says. “Their maximum capacity, year in and year out, is between 8,000 to 10,000 closed cases. So if you get a combination of more than 10,000 people violating a federal act, and then on top of it, you have states and local communities refusing to participate in enforcement. You’ve then opened the door to actually nullify that federal act in practice and effect.”

Boldin says that the legal case for nullification doesn’t depend on the constitutionality of the law a state wants to nullify thanks to a legal doctrine known as anti-commandeering, which has been upheld in five Supreme Court cases from 1842 to 2018. It holds that the federal government can’t require states and localities to participate in the enforcement of federal laws.

“Talking about constitutionality actually does kind of get in the way of anti-commandeering,” Boldin notes. “A lot of people like that as a line in the sand. And I think that’s a good approach, but I don’t think they should be helping enforce federal gun control. Even if a federal court says this federal gun measure is ‘constitutional.'”

In March 2018, when the Trump administration was fighting with local officials over the enforcement of federal immigration laws, John Bolton, who would be appointed by then–President Donald Trump as national security adviser the following month, challenged the concept of nullification in an interview with Breitbart News Daily.

“The idea that law enforcement at lower levels shouldn’t be required to cooperate with the feds is just unthinkable,” he told SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. “That was also proposed by South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun before the Civil War, to say that South Carolina and other slave states would not enforce federal law regarding slavery.”

Boldin says that argument is ahistorical. Anti-commandeering originated in the 1842 Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania, which upheld the state’s right not to participate in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. “The bottom line is nullification, as a tool banning participation in federal enforcement was actually a tool of the anti-slavery abolitionist North,” Boldin argues. “And when South Carolina seceded…they issued a document to explain their rationale. And they specifically cited Northern nullification of the federal Fugitive Slave Act.”

Sabatini says his bill is popular among Florida voters, but that doesn’t mean it’s likely to pass. In other states, law enforcement groups like the Missouri Sheriffs’ Association have worked to prevent gun control nullification bills from passing or to change their language, rendering them toothless.

Boldin says police departments want to continue enforcing federal law because it’s lucrative. “They get all kinds of funding from the joint task forces, through things like the Department of Homeland security grant, the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant…They get civil asset forfeiture…I don’t think they’ll admit that they’re getting a bunch of loot to do this federal enforcement, but they certainly are.”

Boldin says that for the nullification movement to succeed against gun control laws and beyond, more Americans will have to recognize that the most effective way to oppose federal policies that violate their rights is at the local level.

“The whole idea of federalism is so important because it’s the only way you can have a country with a few hundred million people living together with a wide range of social, economic, political viewpoints together in peace. What’s right for people in California is probably not right for people in South Carolina and vice versa. And when we see things that come down from a one-size-fits-all centralized solution, I don’t think anyone really ever gets what they want.”

Because 36 states have nullified federal marijuana prohibition, Boldin argues, there’s mounting pressure for the federal government to follow suit. “I think we can replicate that on other issues and learn that localism is really the way forward for liberty.”

Produced by John Osterhoudt, additional camera by Zach Weissmueller, color correction by Regan Taylor

Photos: Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA/Newscom; Nicole Neri/Reuters/Newscom; The Mises Institute; Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom.

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More Than A Dozen States Are Trying To Nullify Federal Gun Control


8111919_thumb

With President Joe Biden issuing a flurry of executive actions last week to strengthen federal gun laws, state representatives across the country are working in the opposite direction, taking a page from the playbook of immigration activists by advancing legislation that would make their enforcement illegal. On April 6, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed the first gun control nullification bill into law.

“Nullifying unconstitutional, federal laws is both legal and it’s also the right thing to do,” says Anthony Sabatini, a Republican lawmaker and member of the Florida House of Representatives. “It’s silly to sit around and wait for something you know is unconstitutional,” he tells Reason. “It’s time to stand up and fight back. And the methods that we need to use are the ones already being used by the left.”

In 1987, Oregon passed a law prohibiting state and local law enforcement from using public resources to arrest or detain people whose only crime was being in the country illegally. Since then, hundreds of other jurisdictions have passed similar laws, becoming so-called sanctuary cities.

Conservative activists are employing the same strategy. While Arizona is the only state where such a bill has become law, elected officials have introduced similar bills in more than a dozen statehouses. Montana‘s legislature has approved a bill that is now awaiting signature or veto from the governor; the Arkansas Senate and the Missouri, South Carolina, and West Virginia houses have each passed such bills; committees in Texas, Alabama, and New Hampshire have bills that are moving forward in their state legislatures; and similar bills have been introduced in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa, and Louisiana.

“We know this stuff has been working and the right can continue to complain about the things that the left is successful at, or they can look at it, learn from it, and replicate it,” Michael Boldin, the founder and executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, tells Reason.

Sabatini is cosponsoring a bill in Florida called the “Second Amendment Preservation Act” that would prohibit any employee of the state of Florida from enforcing, or attempting to enforce “any federal act, law, executive order, administrative order, court order, rule, regulation, statute, or ordinance infringing on the right to keep and bear arms ensured by the Second Amendment.” The bill says that any state employee who assists in enforcing federal gun control laws would be terminated and never again be allowed to work for the state of Florida.

Defying federal law is something that a majority of states already do in one way or another, by becoming immigration sanctuaries or through the legalization and decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs that federal law still deems illegal.

“In terms of the method it’s identical,” says Sabatini. In sanctuary cities, “they stopped reporting to or dealing with I.C.E., and that’s basically what we’re doing.”

Boldin says that if states refuse to cooperate with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), then federal gun control becomes difficult to enforce.

“The ATF only has about 5,500 employees for the whole country. About a third of them are in administration, and that means they don’t have the manpower or resources to enforce federal gun control on their own,” he says. “Their maximum capacity, year in and year out, is between 8,000 to 10,000 closed cases. So if you get a combination of more than 10,000 people violating a federal act, and then on top of it, you have states and local communities refusing to participate in enforcement. You’ve then opened the door to actually nullify that federal act in practice and effect.”

Boldin says that the legal case for nullification doesn’t depend on the constitutionality of the law a state wants to nullify thanks to a legal doctrine known as anti-commandeering, which has been upheld in five Supreme Court cases from 1842 to 2018. It holds that the federal government can’t require states and localities to participate in the enforcement of federal laws.

“Talking about constitutionality actually does kind of get in the way of anti-commandeering,” Boldin notes. “A lot of people like that as a line in the sand. And I think that’s a good approach, but I don’t think they should be helping enforce federal gun control. Even if a federal court says this federal gun measure is ‘constitutional.'”

In March 2018, when the Trump administration was fighting with local officials over the enforcement of federal immigration laws, John Bolton, who would be appointed by then–President Donald Trump as national security adviser the following month, challenged the concept of nullification in an interview with Breitbart News Daily.

“The idea that law enforcement at lower levels shouldn’t be required to cooperate with the feds is just unthinkable,” he told SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. “That was also proposed by South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun before the Civil War, to say that South Carolina and other slave states would not enforce federal law regarding slavery.”

Boldin says that argument is ahistorical. Anti-commandeering originated in the 1842 Supreme Court case Prigg v. Pennsylvania, which upheld the state’s right not to participate in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. “The bottom line is nullification, as a tool banning participation in federal enforcement was actually a tool of the anti-slavery abolitionist North,” Boldin argues. “And when South Carolina seceded…they issued a document to explain their rationale. And they specifically cited Northern nullification of the federal Fugitive Slave Act.”

Sabatini says his bill is popular among Florida voters, but that doesn’t mean it’s likely to pass. In other states, law enforcement groups like the Missouri Sheriffs’ Association have worked to prevent gun control nullification bills from passing or to change their language, rendering them toothless.

Boldin says police departments want to continue enforcing federal law because it’s lucrative. “They get all kinds of funding from the joint task forces, through things like the Department of Homeland security grant, the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant…They get civil asset forfeiture…I don’t think they’ll admit that they’re getting a bunch of loot to do this federal enforcement, but they certainly are.”

Boldin says that for the nullification movement to succeed against gun control laws and beyond, more Americans will have to recognize that the most effective way to oppose federal policies that violate their rights is at the local level.

“The whole idea of federalism is so important because it’s the only way you can have a country with a few hundred million people living together with a wide range of social, economic, political viewpoints together in peace. What’s right for people in California is probably not right for people in South Carolina and vice versa. And when we see things that come down from a one-size-fits-all centralized solution, I don’t think anyone really ever gets what they want.”

Because 36 states have nullified federal marijuana prohibition, Boldin argues, there’s mounting pressure for the federal government to follow suit. “I think we can replicate that on other issues and learn that localism is really the way forward for liberty.”

Produced by John Osterhoudt, additional camera by Zach Weissmueller, color correction by Regan Taylor

Photos: Alex Milan Tracy/Sipa USA/Newscom; Nicole Neri/Reuters/Newscom; The Mises Institute; Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom.

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FDA Reverses Course on Abortion Drugs by Mail


upiphotos093851

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will once again allow abortion-inducing drugs to be prescribed remotely and sent via mail. Typically, a patient seeking a medical abortion—that’s the type induced via prescription drugs mifepristone and misoprostol—must be prescribed and receive the drugs at a physician’s office, hospital, or medical clinic, per FDA rules. But the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a lot of legal back-and-forth over this.

Last summer, a federal court temporarily suspended the in-person prescription requirement. The in-person prescription requirement during pandemic times presents a “substantial obstacle” (of the sort barred by Roe v. Wade) to women seeking abortions, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in July 2020, issuing a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the FDA’s in-person rules until at least 30 days after an end to the public health emergency was declared.

The Trump administration challenged this ruling, and the Supreme Court asked in October that the court reconsider, given that “relevant circumstances” may have changed. Then, in January, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to ignore the district court’s ruling while a federal appeals court was hearing the matter. That meant that being prescribed abortion drugs once again required an in-person visit.

Now, the FDA says the requirement is again suspended.

In an April 12 letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock wrote that a review of the literature does “not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns (such as hemorrhage, ectopic pregnancy, or surgical interventions) occurring with medical abortion as a result of modifying the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

As a result, the agency would “exercise enforcement discretion” with regard to in-person dispensing requirements and “the dispensing of mifepristone through the mail either by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber, or through a mail-order pharmacy when such dispensing is done under the supervision of a certified prescriber,” Woodcock wrote.

While the suspension is only temporary, it will hopefully pave the way for a more permanent relaxing of the FDA’s in-person prescription and dispensation rule. Like with so many other areas of coronavirus-related regulation relaxing, the lack of adverse outcomes associated with this pandemic prescribing experiment should call into question the need for such regulations even in ordinary times.

“By halting enforcement of the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA is recognizing and responding to the available evidence—which has clearly and definitively demonstrated that the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone is unnecessary and restrictive,” said ACOG CEO Maureen G. Phipps in a statement.

FREE MINDS

Court considers news reports on arrests for charges that were never prosecuted. A Massachusetts trial court has rejected the “right to be forgotten” that exists in Europe, in a case (G.W. v. Gannett Co., Inc.) involving a news report on a person’s arrest on charges that were never prosecuted. “I think that it would sometimes be permissible for state law to treat as libelous (1) the continued display of the initial charges (2) without an update indicating that the charges were dropped; and it would be permissible for state law to extend the statute of limitations for such situations,” comments Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy (published on this site). “But here the lawsuit was for invasion of privacy, not for libel; and in any event the statute of limitations on that has long since run.”

FREE MARKETS

When will cruise ships be allowed to resume trips? Members of the Senate subcommittee on travel and tourism are pushing for the U.S. to resume allowing international travel into the country and allowing cruise lines to resume. Additionally, several senators, including Florida Republicans Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, “announced a bill that is aimed at overriding the CDC’s current framework for getting cruise lines back to sea,” reports The Hill. “In this new legislation, called the CRUISE Act, or Careful Resumption Under Improved Safety Enhancements, lawmakers are calling on U.S. health officials to change current guidelines.”

QUICK HITS

• Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) wants to ban all mergers and acquisitions involving big companies. “His new bill would effectively ban Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc”—along with any company valued at more than $100 billion—”from any deals and would attempt to stop their platforms from favoring their own products over those of rivals,” Reuters reports.

• Vice explores the extremists targeting Pornhub.

• The National Collegiate Athletic Association comes out against trans sports bans:

• Texas is trying to make it child abuse for parents or guardians to allow a child to take puberty blockers or have other medical interventions for “gender reassignment” purposes. The bill would add to the state’s child abuse statute “administering or supplying, or
consenting to or assisting in the administering or supplying of, a puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment; or performing or consenting to the performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment.”

• Things are getting worse in Michigan again:

• Protecting and serving:

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3uO1a4v
via IFTTT

FDA Reverses Course on Abortion Drugs by Mail


upiphotos093851

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will once again allow abortion-inducing drugs to be prescribed remotely and sent via mail. Typically, a patient seeking a medical abortion—that’s the type induced via prescription drugs mifepristone and misoprostol—must be prescribed and receive the drugs at a physician’s office, hospital, or medical clinic, per FDA rules. But the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a lot of legal back-and-forth over this.

Last summer, a federal court temporarily suspended the in-person prescription requirement. The in-person prescription requirement during pandemic times presents a “substantial obstacle” (of the sort barred by Roe v. Wade) to women seeking abortions, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in July 2020, issuing a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the FDA’s in-person rules until at least 30 days after an end to the public health emergency was declared.

The Trump administration challenged this ruling, and the Supreme Court asked in October that the court reconsider, given that “relevant circumstances” may have changed. Then, in January, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to ignore the district court’s ruling while a federal appeals court was hearing the matter. That meant that being prescribed abortion drugs once again required an in-person visit.

Now, the FDA says the requirement is again suspended.

In an April 12 letter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock wrote that a review of the literature does “not appear to show increases in serious safety concerns (such as hemorrhage, ectopic pregnancy, or surgical interventions) occurring with medical abortion as a result of modifying the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

As a result, the agency would “exercise enforcement discretion” with regard to in-person dispensing requirements and “the dispensing of mifepristone through the mail either by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber, or through a mail-order pharmacy when such dispensing is done under the supervision of a certified prescriber,” Woodcock wrote.

While the suspension is only temporary, it will hopefully pave the way for a more permanent relaxing of the FDA’s in-person prescription and dispensation rule. Like with so many other areas of coronavirus-related regulation relaxing, the lack of adverse outcomes associated with this pandemic prescribing experiment should call into question the need for such regulations even in ordinary times.

“By halting enforcement of the in-person dispensing requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA is recognizing and responding to the available evidence—which has clearly and definitively demonstrated that the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone is unnecessary and restrictive,” said ACOG CEO Maureen G. Phipps in a statement.

FREE MINDS

Court considers news reports on arrests for charges that were never prosecuted. A Massachusetts trial court has rejected the “right to be forgotten” that exists in Europe, in a case (G.W. v. Gannett Co., Inc.) involving a news report on a person’s arrest on charges that were never prosecuted. “I think that it would sometimes be permissible for state law to treat as libelous (1) the continued display of the initial charges (2) without an update indicating that the charges were dropped; and it would be permissible for state law to extend the statute of limitations for such situations,” comments Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy (published on this site). “But here the lawsuit was for invasion of privacy, not for libel; and in any event the statute of limitations on that has long since run.”

FREE MARKETS

When will cruise ships be allowed to resume trips? Members of the Senate subcommittee on travel and tourism are pushing for the U.S. to resume allowing international travel into the country and allowing cruise lines to resume. Additionally, several senators, including Florida Republicans Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, “announced a bill that is aimed at overriding the CDC’s current framework for getting cruise lines back to sea,” reports The Hill. “In this new legislation, called the CRUISE Act, or Careful Resumption Under Improved Safety Enhancements, lawmakers are calling on U.S. health officials to change current guidelines.”

QUICK HITS

• Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) wants to ban all mergers and acquisitions involving big companies. “His new bill would effectively ban Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc”—along with any company valued at more than $100 billion—”from any deals and would attempt to stop their platforms from favoring their own products over those of rivals,” Reuters reports.

• Vice explores the extremists targeting Pornhub.

• The National Collegiate Athletic Association comes out against trans sports bans:

• Texas is trying to make it child abuse for parents or guardians to allow a child to take puberty blockers or have other medical interventions for “gender reassignment” purposes. The bill would add to the state’s child abuse statute “administering or supplying, or
consenting to or assisting in the administering or supplying of, a puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment; or performing or consenting to the performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender transitioning or gender reassignment.”

• Things are getting worse in Michigan again:

• Protecting and serving:

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The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents, Volumes 1 and 2 by Kurt Lash

My good friend Kurt Lash has published The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents, Volumes 1 and 2. Kurt has put together all of the relevant documents to understand the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Truly, his effort is remarkable. Here is the blurb:

Ratified in the years immediately following the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—together known as the Reconstruction Amendments—abolished slavery, safeguarded a set of basic national liberties, and expanded the right to vote, respectively. This two-volume work presents the key speeches, debates, and public dialogues that surrounded the adoption of the three amendments, allowing us to more fully experience how they reshaped the nature of American life and freedom.

Volume I outlines a broad historical context for the Reconstruction Amendments and contains materials related to the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, while Volume 2 covers the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on the rights of citizenship and enfranchisement. The documents in this collection encompass a sweeping range of primary sources, from congressional debates to court cases, public speeches to newspaper articles. As a whole, the volumes meticulously depict a significant period of legal change even as they illuminate the ways in which people across the land grappled with the process of constitutional reconstruction. Filling a major gap in the literature on the era, The Reconstruction Amendments will be indispensable for readers in politics, history, and law, as well as anyone seeking a better understanding of the post–Civil War basis of American constitutional democracy.

This seminal work should reside on every (virtual) bookshelf. The book is not cheap, but is well worth the cost. I have already used a pre-publication copy in some of my research. We all owe Kurt a huge debt.

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via IFTTT

The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents, Volumes 1 and 2 by Kurt Lash

My good friend Kurt Lash has published The Reconstruction Amendments: The Essential Documents, Volumes 1 and 2. Kurt has put together all of the relevant documents to understand the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Truly, his effort is remarkable. Here is the blurb:

Ratified in the years immediately following the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—together known as the Reconstruction Amendments—abolished slavery, safeguarded a set of basic national liberties, and expanded the right to vote, respectively. This two-volume work presents the key speeches, debates, and public dialogues that surrounded the adoption of the three amendments, allowing us to more fully experience how they reshaped the nature of American life and freedom.

Volume I outlines a broad historical context for the Reconstruction Amendments and contains materials related to the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, while Volume 2 covers the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on the rights of citizenship and enfranchisement. The documents in this collection encompass a sweeping range of primary sources, from congressional debates to court cases, public speeches to newspaper articles. As a whole, the volumes meticulously depict a significant period of legal change even as they illuminate the ways in which people across the land grappled with the process of constitutional reconstruction. Filling a major gap in the literature on the era, The Reconstruction Amendments will be indispensable for readers in politics, history, and law, as well as anyone seeking a better understanding of the post–Civil War basis of American constitutional democracy.

This seminal work should reside on every (virtual) bookshelf. The book is not cheap, but is well worth the cost. I have already used a pre-publication copy in some of my research. We all owe Kurt a huge debt.

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Enjoy Tax Day 2021. They Just Get Worse From Here.


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Happy Tax Day! True, April 15 is a bit less momentous than usual this year, because the IRS and many state revenue agencies extended the deadline for filing tax returns and making payments to accommodate economic troubles caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. Still, those of us accustomed to the usual date can’t help but dread the coming of mid-April. This year, that dread is even more appropriate if you recognize that taxation is theft and anticipate rougher muggings than usual in years to come, courtesy of the Biden administration’s ambitious tax proposals.

“Democrats have spent the last several years clamoring to raise taxes on corporations and the rich,” Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane noted for The New York Times in March. “Now, under President Biden, they have a shot at ushering in the largest federal tax increase since 1942.”

Such a dramatically large tax increase is impressive, but what’s even more impressive is that it still isn’t enough to cover President Joe Biden’s spending plans. “Aides suggest his proposals might not be entirely paid for, with some one-time spending increases offset by increased federal borrowing,” added Tankersley and Emily Cochrane.

In fact, “the largest federal tax increase since 1942” is sufficient to cover only a small part of the trillions of dollars in spending already passed and under consideration by the federal government.

“Biden plans to splurge $11 trillion in additional spending over a decade,” Reason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy observed earlier this month. “Meanwhile, his proposed tax hikes are estimated to reap $2.1 to $2.8 trillion. In other words, for every $5 or $6 in new spending, $1 will be paid for in new taxes, and the rest goes on the nation’s credit card.”

That’s a double whammy of pain, because there are costs to both higher taxes and soaring debt.

The easiest sell for the administration is a big hike in the corporate tax rate, because seemingly everybody is angry at corporations right now and they’re relatively faceless, easy targets. The president proposes to raise the corporate tax rate from the current 21 percent, which is about the middle of the pack among developed countries, to 28 percent, which is more than triple Switzerland’s 8.5 percent and almost twice the 15 percent charged by Canada (Canadian provinces and Swiss cantons also impose additional taxes, just like U.S. states).

Aware that such a high tax rate might make the United States an unattractive place for companies to base themselves, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen advocates a “global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom.” Of course, imposing that tax would require the cooperation of governments that might benefit more easily by offering an attractive low-tax alternative to Yellen and company.

But corporations are just ways of organizing group efforts by human beings, and those people ultimately pay taxes.

“The burden is shared among stockholders and, unintuitively, among a broader group of workers and investors,” observes the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. “[T]he Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) assumes investment returns (dividends, interest, capital gains, etc.) bear 80 percent of the burden, with wages and other labor income carrying the remaining 20 percent.”

Tax policy may aim at big, bad corporations, but it ultimately hits retirement investments and paychecks.

Another easy target is “the rich,” because few people consider themselves in that category until the term is redefined in unexpected ways. What it means at the moment isn’t clear because Biden says his plan “won’t raise a penny tax on a family making less than $400,000 a year,” while Jen Psaki, his press secretary, insists the proposal “will not raise taxes on any individual or family” under the cutoff, which isn’t the same thing. Even if most Americans ultimately make less than the magic threshold, a lot more people are in for rougher future muggings from higher income taxes. And even lower-income individuals and families will suffer from an economy depressed by higher spending, soaring taxes, and growing debt.

“The general finding is that increasing taxes leads to lower GDP and personal consumption,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned last month of the consequences of higher taxes to finance increased government expenditures. “After 10 years, the level of GDP by 2030 is between 3 percent and 10 percent lower than it would be without the increase in expenditures and revenues.”

The CBO also warned that revenues collected by the federal government from hikes across three possible tax policies affecting income and capital will shrink without adjustment because people will work less, reduce investments, and even leave the labor force in response to the government’s increased take. “To maintain deficit neutrality, tax rates for all three tax policies must rise over time to offset behavioral responses that result in smaller tax bases.”

Those continuing deficits—remember that even “the largest federal tax increase since 1942” isn’t sufficient to cover spending plans—will add on to a debt that’s been accumulating for a federal government that hasn’t balanced a budget in 20 years. Even before the spending spree of the past year, federal debt was expected to hit 98 percent of GDP in 2030. Debt at that level “would dampen economic output” and servicing it would inevitably “reduce the income of U.S. households,” the Congressional Budget Office predicted. Debt will now be much higher as a share of GDP as a result of trillions of dollars in additional spending, with all of the pain that implies.

That pain from the growing national debt will add on to the pain of soaring taxes that are insufficient to offset that debt. It all adds up to a shared experience that just might live up to Biden’s call for “uniting our nation.” Misery loves company, after all.

So, happy Tax Day. Get what enjoyment you can from this year’s events, because the muggings to come will be a lot rougher.

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Enjoy Tax Day 2021. They Just Get Worse From Here.


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Happy Tax Day! True, April 15 is a bit less momentous than usual this year, because the IRS and many state revenue agencies extended the deadline for filing tax returns and making payments to accommodate economic troubles caused by the pandemic and lockdowns. Still, those of us accustomed to the usual date can’t help but dread the coming of mid-April. This year, that dread is even more appropriate if you recognize that taxation is theft and anticipate rougher muggings than usual in years to come, courtesy of the Biden administration’s ambitious tax proposals.

“Democrats have spent the last several years clamoring to raise taxes on corporations and the rich,” Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane noted for The New York Times in March. “Now, under President Biden, they have a shot at ushering in the largest federal tax increase since 1942.”

Such a dramatically large tax increase is impressive, but what’s even more impressive is that it still isn’t enough to cover President Joe Biden’s spending plans. “Aides suggest his proposals might not be entirely paid for, with some one-time spending increases offset by increased federal borrowing,” added Tankersley and Emily Cochrane.

In fact, “the largest federal tax increase since 1942” is sufficient to cover only a small part of the trillions of dollars in spending already passed and under consideration by the federal government.

“Biden plans to splurge $11 trillion in additional spending over a decade,” Reason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy observed earlier this month. “Meanwhile, his proposed tax hikes are estimated to reap $2.1 to $2.8 trillion. In other words, for every $5 or $6 in new spending, $1 will be paid for in new taxes, and the rest goes on the nation’s credit card.”

That’s a double whammy of pain, because there are costs to both higher taxes and soaring debt.

The easiest sell for the administration is a big hike in the corporate tax rate, because seemingly everybody is angry at corporations right now and they’re relatively faceless, easy targets. The president proposes to raise the corporate tax rate from the current 21 percent, which is about the middle of the pack among developed countries, to 28 percent, which is more than triple Switzerland’s 8.5 percent and almost twice the 15 percent charged by Canada (Canadian provinces and Swiss cantons also impose additional taxes, just like U.S. states).

Aware that such a high tax rate might make the United States an unattractive place for companies to base themselves, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen advocates a “global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom.” Of course, imposing that tax would require the cooperation of governments that might benefit more easily by offering an attractive low-tax alternative to Yellen and company.

But corporations are just ways of organizing group efforts by human beings, and those people ultimately pay taxes.

“The burden is shared among stockholders and, unintuitively, among a broader group of workers and investors,” observes the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. “[T]he Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) assumes investment returns (dividends, interest, capital gains, etc.) bear 80 percent of the burden, with wages and other labor income carrying the remaining 20 percent.”

Tax policy may aim at big, bad corporations, but it ultimately hits retirement investments and paychecks.

Another easy target is “the rich,” because few people consider themselves in that category until the term is redefined in unexpected ways. What it means at the moment isn’t clear because Biden says his plan “won’t raise a penny tax on a family making less than $400,000 a year,” while Jen Psaki, his press secretary, insists the proposal “will not raise taxes on any individual or family” under the cutoff, which isn’t the same thing. Even if most Americans ultimately make less than the magic threshold, a lot more people are in for rougher future muggings from higher income taxes. And even lower-income individuals and families will suffer from an economy depressed by higher spending, soaring taxes, and growing debt.

“The general finding is that increasing taxes leads to lower GDP and personal consumption,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned last month of the consequences of higher taxes to finance increased government expenditures. “After 10 years, the level of GDP by 2030 is between 3 percent and 10 percent lower than it would be without the increase in expenditures and revenues.”

The CBO also warned that revenues collected by the federal government from hikes across three possible tax policies affecting income and capital will shrink without adjustment because people will work less, reduce investments, and even leave the labor force in response to the government’s increased take. “To maintain deficit neutrality, tax rates for all three tax policies must rise over time to offset behavioral responses that result in smaller tax bases.”

Those continuing deficits—remember that even “the largest federal tax increase since 1942” isn’t sufficient to cover spending plans—will add on to a debt that’s been accumulating for a federal government that hasn’t balanced a budget in 20 years. Even before the spending spree of the past year, federal debt was expected to hit 98 percent of GDP in 2030. Debt at that level “would dampen economic output” and servicing it would inevitably “reduce the income of U.S. households,” the Congressional Budget Office predicted. Debt will now be much higher as a share of GDP as a result of trillions of dollars in additional spending, with all of the pain that implies.

That pain from the growing national debt will add on to the pain of soaring taxes that are insufficient to offset that debt. It all adds up to a shared experience that just might live up to Biden’s call for “uniting our nation.” Misery loves company, after all.

So, happy Tax Day. Get what enjoyment you can from this year’s events, because the muggings to come will be a lot rougher.

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