Category: reason

3/19/2018: District of Columbia v. Heller argued.

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A Gloucester Township, New Jersey, police officer faces a minimum of five years in prison after being convicted of two counts of official misconduct. John Flinn was caught on bodycam video slapping and shoving a 13-year-old girl at a group home for juveniles with emotional problems. Flinn and another officer had answered a call at the home regarding a fight. They found the girl punching and kicking two employees of the home. The other officer forced the girl to the ground, and Flinn tried to handcuff her. When she resisted, Flinn struck her.

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The United States would be better prepared for the COVID-19 epidemic, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) suggested during Sunday night’s presidential debate, if it had a single-payer health care system similar to his Medicare for All proposal. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading contender for the Democratic nomination, was appropriately skeptical, noting that Italy, the European country hardest hit by the disease, has a single-payer system, and “it doesn’t work there.”

Sanders is hardly alone in using COVID-19 as a pretext to promote a policy he has always favored. But at a time when clarity about government aims and means is crucial, that temptation should be resisted unless there is a plausible connection between the policy and the current crisis.

Sanders’ claim failed that test. Not only has Italy’s health care system been overwhelmed by the epidemic, but countries such as Spain and France are following a similar path, notwithstanding their government-dominated medical sectors.

“It has nothing to do with Medicare for All,” Biden rightly retorted. “That would not solve the problem at all.”

Sanders also drew a connection between COVID-19 and economic inequality, another one of the self-described democratic socialist’s favorite themes. “We have more income and wealth inequality in America today than any time in 100 years,” he said in response to a question about the epidemic’s economic impact.

Sanders’ point was that rich people can more easily bear the costs associated with COVID-19 than poor people can, which is obviously true. But that observation does not necessarily translate into support for a new wealth tax, expansion of the already financially precarious Social Security system, a $16.3 trillion Green New Deal, or “free” health care, child care, housing, and college.

While Sanders’ sweeping plans could not possibly be implemented in time to make a difference during the COVID-19 outbreak, Democrats have not been shy about slipping items on their public policy wish list into legislation ostensibly aimed at dealing with the epidemic. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which the House approved last week, includes a permanent mandate for paid sick leave, specifically covering absences “resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking,” which clearly cannot be justified as an emergency measure or as a response to the coronavirus.

Sending every American $1,000 a month—an idea proposed by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii) and endorsed by former presidential contender Andrew Yang, who famously wanted the federal government to do that even before anyone was worrying about COVID-19—does not look like a carefully targeted response either, even if limited to the duration of the epidemic. As Sanders probably would agree, affluent Americans do not need the extra cash; nor are they apt to go out and spend it, assuming that one goal of the payments is to stimulate the economy.

Republicans, like Democrats, are not above using COVID-19 to advance their pre-existing policy agendas. Last month President Donald Trump described his plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico as “one of the reasons” known COVID-19 case numbers for the United States were “so good” at that point.

In addition to making that logically impossible claim, Trump last week tweeted that the epidemic shows “we need the Wall more than ever!” But as Washington Post fact checker Salvador Rizzo noted, “none of the coronavirus cases reported in the United States have been linked to people who entered through the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), meanwhile, seems to be using the epidemic to build a case for anti-Chinese trade barriers under the guise of protecting U.S. access to medical products. More vaguely, Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) promises to “hold accountable those who inflicted [COVID-19] on the world,” which “means China will pay for this,” according to an interpretation the senator confirmed.

It seems more likely that the rest of us will end up paying for politicians’ inability to put the public interest above their partisan impulses.

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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You can be forgiven amid the coronavirus news smother for forgetting that there’s still a Democratic presidential nominating process underway. Judging by tonight’s results, Democrats themselves are eager to put that competition behind them as well.

Unsurprisingly, it took about one second after polls closed in Fidel Castro–hating Florida for the 219-delegate Sunshine State to be called against revolution-enthusiast Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and in favor of former vice president Joe Biden. At 80 percent reporting, in keeping with pre-election polling, Biden was ahead by an impressive 38 percentage points, good for a preliminary 126–17 delegate advantage.

But 155-delegate Illinois, too, illustrated the madness of Bernie’s March. The democratic socialist, who had a comfortable polling lead in the Prairie State for most of the month of February, was down 58 percent to 34 percent with 3 percent of the vote tallied, though networks were still judging the race too close to call. (UPDATE: Multiple news organizations have now called Biden the winner of Illinois.)

Had Ohio not canceled its primary, today could have been a three-fer for Larry David’s lesser half. Arizona wraps up at 10 p.m. eastern time, with a projection of even more pain.

What a stunning turn events from as recently as one month ago, when Sanders in Nevada decisively notched up his third of three early-state victories, with Biden settling for the consolation of having finished higher than fourth place in a presidential contest for the first time ever in his four-decade quest for the keys to the Oval Office.

“Sanders hasn’t locked up the race yet, but he’s now in a position to do so,” Reason‘s Peter Suderman concluded back then. “Democrats look very much like they’re about to nominate a self-described democratic socialist for president.” That did not happen.

Turns out when the field clears to just two or three candidates, there is a demonstrated ceiling to the Bernie Sanders vote, particularly in a year when Democrats are more focused than ever on perceived ability to beat President Donald Trump.

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Cutting every single American a check was once the zany idea of a long shot Democratic presidential candidate (Hi, Andrew Yang!). It’s now the consensus policy response to an imminent coronavirus-induced recession.

“We’re looking at sending checks to people immediately,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at a press briefing. “Many companies have shut down, whether it’s bars or restaurants. Americans need cash now, and I mean now in the next two weeks.”

On Monday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) endorsed a minimum one-time transfer of $1,000 to all Americans as part of a broader set of economic relief proposals.

Democrats are warming to the idea as well. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii) has introduced a resolution for an emergency universal basic income (UBI) to last until the current crisis is over. Harvard professor and former Obama administration economic advisor Jason Furman has reportedly been trying to get House Democrats behind a check-cutting policy.

These proposals are not entirely unprecedented.

To combat the dot-com bubble bursting, Congress passed stimulus legislation in June 2001 that saw some 90 million taxpayers get rebate checks of between $300 and $600.

Then in early 2008, Congress passed the Economic Stimulus Act in an attempt to stave off the Great Recession. That legislation included provisions for mailing 130 million taxpayers a basic tax rebate of either $600 for single-filers or $1,200 for married couples. Parents could claim an additional $300 for each dependent child.

There are some significant differences between these rebates, and what is being proposed now, however, says David Beckworth, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

“They were just one-time shots. They weren’t like what was being proposed now, which is a little more continuous, or at least [continued] for the duration of the crisis,” says Beckworth. That means the current policies being considered would be much, much more expensive.

The 2001 rebates cost $38 billion. The rebates given in 2008 cost $113 billion. Sending every adult American a $1,000 check, as is being proposed now would cost $2.8 trillion a year according to the Tax Foundation, or about $230 billion a month.

Paying for something like that, says Beckworth, will likely require intervention from the Federal Reserve. The Treasury, he says, could sell bonds to the Fed for cash, and then give that money to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to mail out as checks to taxpayers.

This would essentially be the “helicopter money” approach Milton Friedman first proposed as a thought experiment in the late 1960s.

Beckworth says the idea has a couple of things going for it during this current crisis. With huge swaths of the economy essentially shutting down in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus, dropping money from metaphorical helicopters (or maybe drones) would be the best way to ensure that everyone who suddenly finds themselves out of work will get some relief.

“It would bypass the normal plumbing of monetary policy. I think that’s the biggest argument for it,” says Beckworth.

The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner criticized this approach to me yesterday, suggesting that most people either aren’t missing paychecks because of the current crisis or are already eligible for existing relief programs. Sending checks to everyone will then shower benefits mostly on people who don’t really need it, Tanner argued.

“This is a knowledge problem,” counters Beckworth, saying that government officials are not going to be able to come up with precise eligibility requirements that funnel aid to the people who need it while avoiding sending it to people who don’t.

Even if bureaucrats could come up with the appropriate eligibility criteria, there’s a question of whether the government would be able to effectively administer a program like that in a pinch.

There are still huge risks of an emergency universal income financed by the Fed, acknowledges Beckworth.

“If you start doing that, then you open a Pandora’s box for politicians and others who are going to want to do it all the time,” he says, adding an ideal policy “needs to be very much based on a rule or condition. You don’t want to send them out willy-nilly. You want to tie it to an economic indicator.” Such a rule, he says, would force politicians to “turn off the spigot” when the crisis has passed.

He suggests tying such a policy to a monthly measurement of household income or even a rate of nominal GDP growth, with the government continuing to spend until that target is reached.

Even if a helicopter money policy was bound by such a rule, however, there’d always be the danger that politicians and central bankers could ignore it. Paying for economic relief by creating money also raises the specter of inflation.

Beckworth urges free marketers to “think strategically, not tactically.” If universal economic assistance, financed by the Fed and bound by some sort of nominal GDP or other target, is successful in staving off a serious economic crash, that would reduce the demand for more extensive regulatory interventions that could have a longer, more damaging effect, he argues.

“Take a pragmatic approach here,” says Beckworth. We should be willing to “fight the good fight to minimize any further growth of permanent government programs that are going to happen if we don’t get ahead of this.”

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