Month: April 2022

“My dad had an expression,” said President Joe Biden as he announced his budget plan for FY 2023. “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

So at the very moment that we’re experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years, what does Biden value? The same sort of government spending that is already sending prices through the roof.

You’d figure that with Covid receding, debt rising, and a tidal wave of unfunded liabilities staring us right in the kisser, Biden would take the opportunity to radically reset the federal government’s balance sheet. Instead, his budget plan could be titled Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic.

The president wants to spend $5.8 trillion, which would include jacking spending on defense, education, and police. He talks about levying a controversial—and probably unconstitutional—wealth tax on billionaires to help pay for it all but still expects a budget deficit of $1.2 trillion (see Table S1 in Summary Tables)! If you’re going to tax unrealized capital gains, President Biden, at least spend it on something pretty!

It’s debt-financed spending that helps spur inflation in the first place. Rather than cutting spending and reforming entitlements, the government borrows and prints money so it can keep giving more goodies to its favored citizens. You get more dollars chasing the same amount of goods, and that leads to price hikes.

Meanwhile, at least a dozen states—including such far-flung places as California, Georgia, Hawaii, and Maine—are thinking about giving residents money to spend on things like gas, the price of which has gone through the roof. “Direct relief will address the issue that we all are struggling to address,” says California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “That’s the issue of gas prices, not only here in our state, but of course, all across this country.”

Is he serious? Doling out tax dollars to alleviate the pain of inflation is like drinking a beer in the morning to ease your hangover. It’s only setting up the next binge.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has announced a series of interest rate hikes to help tame inflation, but in a recent speech, he made no mention of the increase in the money supply measured by M2, which has risen by a record 41 percent in two years, or of the Federal Reserve’s holding of U.S. debt, which has jumped $3.5 trillion over the same time period.

Powell’s interest rate hikes will be small enough that it’s unclear whether they will have much impact. Back in the 1980s, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker allowed the fed funds rate to more than double in less than two years’ time to over 20 percent, which helped kill inflation but also caused the most severe recession since the Great Depression.

Worse, serious hikes by the Fed today will not just likely cause a major economic downturn, they will devastate the government’s balance sheet, requiring either massive tax hikes on everyone, huge reductions in government services, or a combination of both.

According to recent conservative estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, as the federal budget grows, the cost of paying interest on the debt will keep increasing until it accounts for about 24 cents of every dollar spent by 2050. And that’s assuming interest rates will remain historically low.

So even moderate increases in the fed funds rate would push the cost of servicing the debt much higher, causing the government to borrow more money and kicking us into a vicious cycle of economic despair.

Biden can talk a good game about “returning our fiscal house to order,” but it’s clear he doesn’t understand why prices are going up—and that his policies will keep them high for the foreseeable future. That might cost Democrats control of the House and the Senate in the fall and perhaps Biden the White House in 2024.

That will be too bad for him and his party. But his unwillingness to confront massive spending and debt is going to cost all of us a lot more than that.

Photo Credits: Chris Kleponis – CNP / MEGA / Newscom; Frank Hoermann / SVEN SIMON/picture alliance / SVEN SIMON/Newscom; Paul Hennessy/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Karla Cot/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscoml Arnie Sachs/picture alliance / Consolidated/Newscom.

Music Credits: “Dark Fantasy,” by IamDayLight via Artlist.

Written and narrated by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Regan Taylor.

The post Biden Is Clueless About Inflation appeared first on Reason.com.

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Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed the Reasonable Independence for Children Act into law. “We certainly don’t want parents getting in trouble because their kids were playing on the playground,” he said.

Colorado has now become the fourth state to pass what was originally dubbed the Free-Range Parenting Law when Utah passed it in 2018.  Texas and Oklahoma followed suit last year.

But Colorado is the first blue state to pass the legislation. That’s great, because at Let Grow, the nonprofit that grew out of Free-Range Kids, we have always maintained that childhood independence is a bipartisan issue. Many Republicans appreciate our work to promote can-do kids and keep the government out of everyday family decisions, and many Democrats appreciate the same exact thing.

The new law narrows the definition of neglect, making it clear that a child is not neglected simply because a parent lets them engage in normal childhood activities, like playing outside without adult supervision or staying home alone for a bit.

At the signing, Polis was surrounded by the bill’s bipartisan sponsors and other advocates, including a girl once reported to the police for enjoying a run around the block.

“We want to let parents be parents,” said state Rep. Kim Ransom, a Republican. As she stood on one side of the governor, her friend, state Sen. Janet Buckner, a Democrat, stood on the other. The two legislators had long wanted to sponsor a bill together, but this was the first one they could finally agree on.

They co-sponsored the bill in 2020 and watched it sail through the state House with unanimous support. But then COVID-19 shut everything down just days before the vote in the state Senate.

This time around, the original sponsors were joined by another bipartisan team, Sen. Jim Smallwood, a Republican, and Rep. Mary Young, a Democrat. Young, a child psychologist, noted that perhaps the bill had passed both houses unanimously because “this is the first time we’ve had a bill with the word ‘reasonable’ in the title.”

When Buckner sponsored the bill the first time around, she wrote in an op-ed how incredible it felt the first time her mother let her run an errand by herself: going to the store to get baking powder. “I am still thankful for that, because it helped me gain confidence knowing that my mother and father felt I was smart enough and strong enough to be given that freedom,” she wrote.

It’s exactly that kind of confidence that Brinley Sheffield was experiencing a few years back when, as a seven-year-old, she decided to just take a fun run around the block, with her mom’s permission.

Just as she was rounding the block to return home, a car started following her. As she testified to the Colorado legislature a few weeks ago, “I thought about knocking on someone else’s door to ask for help, but I wasn’t very far from my house, so I decided to just run home.”

Minutes after she arrived, so did the police. “My first thought was that they found the person who followed me and were going to put them in jail,” she said. “But then I realized that the officer was at our house because of me! The person who followed me called the police because I was outside running by myself.”

While the police did not charge her mom with anything, it still changed their family’s thinking. “For many years after this,” Brinley testified, “I didn’t want to run around the block.”

The new law will reassure parents who are worried about the “often times vague and confusing neglect laws,” said Ruchi Kapoor, founder of Kapoor Law +Policy. Kapoor was part of a group of parents and advocates convened by Let Grow in partnership with the Colorado nonprofit Elephant Circle.

Of course, actual neglect is still forbidden—say, letting a two-year-old play in the street, or leaving a six-year-old alone for a week. But the new law takes a weight off parents’ minds. Said Let Grow’s legal consultant, Diane Redleaf, “Helicopter parenting cannot be the law of the land. And one by one, states are starting to make sure it isn’t.”

Up next? Reasonable Independence bills are being introduced in Illinois, Nebraska and South Carolina.

The post Colorado Approves Law That Gives Kids 'Reasonable Independence' appeared first on Reason.com.

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Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: You win a judgment against the government on a constitutional claim, and then the government just doesn’t pay up and says you can’t make it. In America.

• Under Brazil’s Mais Médicos program, the country hires foreign doctors to bolster its medical services for poor Brazilians. Cuba, in turn, rounds up Cuban doctors and ships them out, allegedly without their consent and in violation of human trafficking laws. Four doctors escape to the U.S, where they sue the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for handling the money through its Washington, D.C. bank account. PAHO, for its part, claims immunity under the Constitution of the World Health Organization, which entitles it to the “privileges and immunities as may be necessary” to carry out WHO functions. D.C. Circuit: But those privileges and immunities were supposed to be spelled out in a separate agreement, which never happened. So the case goes forward.
• Is the Speaker of New Hampshire’s House of Representatives unlawfully discriminating against state reps who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 by barring them from participating in proceedings remotely? First Circuit (sitting en banc): Can’t say. The Speaker is entitled to absolute legislative immunity. Dissent: The point of legislative immunity is to protect legislators’ ability to discharge their duties, which is not accomplished by forcing them to choose between those duties and a significant risk of death.
• Friends, do please enjoy this week’s vocab quiz: cergestrate, bisanguinous, three-step crazado, and pelltroon. Brought to you by Judge Selya of the First Circuit.
• Shi’a man alleges he was abducted by the Taliban (who are Sunni) and forced to cook, clean, wash clothes and, on one occasion, fight. He escapes and is granted asylum in the U.S. in 2000. But in 2016, the feds decide he cannot become a permanent resident because, among other things, he used a weapon. Second Circuit: Okay, but there are some elements to the “weapons bar,” and the feds didn’t adequately explain in 2016 how those were met, and they can’t just check those boxes now. Lots of other issues to sort out on remand.
• U.S. residents with ties to Haiti sue the Haitian government and several multinational corporations, alleging that they conspired to fix the prices of remittances and telephone calls from the U.S. to Haiti. The district court dismisses the case under the “act of state doctrine.” Second Circuit: Which was improper. The act of state doctrine prohibits courts from declaring foreign government acts invalid. It doesn’t prohibit them from declaring foreign government acts wrongful under valid U.S. cause of action.
• Third Circuit: A student expelled from Princeton after his ex accused him of sex abuse plausibly alleged that the university discriminated against him on the basis of his sex. Case undismissed.
• Macon County, N.C. sheriff’s deputy shoots into home from porch, killing man who had just racked a shotgun. Fourth Circuit (over a dissent): No qualified immunity. It’s disputed where the man was pointing the shotgun and whether he knew the deputy was law enforcement. And some of the state-law claims should not have been dismissed either.
• In the Zen tradition, indecipherable koans like “what is the sound of one hand clapping” are meant to lead us to greater truths about the universe. In that spirit, the Fourth Circuit confronts the question “can a prisoner’s criminal history be held against him if he has no criminal history” and, having achieved true enlightenment, says no.
• Williamson County, Tex. prosecutors lie to defendant during plea bargaining, tell him they have damning evidence that will put him away for life if he goes to trial. He pleads guilty. Yikes! There was no such evidence, and his conviction is vacated decades later. Can he sue the county over the district attorney’s “closed-file policy,” which allowed prosecutors to withhold evidence before trial? The Fifth Circuit says no. The policy may have enabled the prosecutors to lie, but he hasn’t shown it caused them to lie.
• After exhausting all state appeals, man convicted of murder seeks habeas review, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. During closing argument, defense counsel sneezed 27 times during his 60-minute closing argument. Sixth Circuit: Indeed, counsel’s failure to take a non-drowsy antihistamine—despite knowing he suffered seasonal allergies—materially prejudiced defendant’s right to a fair trial. Retry him or let him go!
• Allegation: After Nashville police officer is exonerated of child abuse (and the Cheatham County, Tenn. investigator who caused her indictment resigns in disgrace), she continues to face a baseless internal affairs investigation, during which she is pressured to accept a demotion. Sixth Circuit: Her state-law malicious prosecution claims survive state-law qualified immunity (which is pretty much the same as federal QI), and defendants’ arguments to the contrary range from tenuous to more tenuous.
• Allegation: Pretrial detainee tells Butler County, Ky. jail officials he’s concerned for his safety because other detainees think he’s a snitch, and sure enough he’s knocked unconscious and suffers a broken jaw soon after. Can he sue a guard? District court: No. Sixth Circuit (over a dissent): Yes.
• Allegation: After attempting to rob a gas station, man flees, crashes his vehicle. He exits and attempts to comply with Indianapolis officers’ conflicting commands. They shoot him as he reaches for his ID. (He survives.) Seventh Circuit: To a jury this must go. No qualified immunity.
• A Kansas inmate’s claim that he was put in solitary in retaliation for filing a lawsuit should not have been dismissed, says the Tenth Circuit; but there is no constitutionally protected interest in jailhouse lawyering, so his claim that he was put in solitary for helping others with their suits can’t go forward. Also dismissed (because of pro se pleading problems): His claims that his cell was teeming with roaches for over two months and that the cell was constantly lit, causing sleep deprivation.
• Circuit split alert! If you force a person to withdraw money from their bank account, have you robbed the bank (a federal crime) or just the person (not a federal crime)? Seventh Circuit (2005): The bank. Fifth Circuit (2005): The person. Tenth Circuit (this week): Bank.
• Denver officer orders homeless man to crawl out from behind some bushes, tases him seconds later as he walks out instead. District court: No qualified immunity. The officer didn’t give him a chance to comply with his “bang-bang commands.” Tenth Circuit: That finding is “blatantly contradicted” by the video. Reversed. (The man’s claims against the city live to see another day, however.)
• Transgender woman applies for asylum in the United States, alleging past persecution in Honduras from her uncle’s abuse and fear of future persecution from pervasive discrimination and violence against transgender women in Honduras. An immigration judge denies asylum and the Board of Immigration Appeals dismisses an appeal. Tenth Circuit: No doubt her uncle is a monster, but he seems to be that way to everyone. So there’s no asylum based on past persecution. But “any reasonable adjudicator” would find a pattern or practice of persecution against transgender women in Honduras. Partial dissent: What are you guys trying to say?
• Christian evangelist sets up shop on a sidewalk on the University of Alabama campus, but is asked to leave because he doesn’t have a permit. He sues, seeking a preliminary injunction, but the injunction is denied because the Eleventh Circuit holds that this particular sidewalk is a limited public forum. Following discovery and a loss on the merits, the evangelist argues the sidewalk is actually a traditional public forum because it is owned by the City of Tuscaloosa. Eleventh Circuit: Well, the government owns all the property subject to forum analysis, so that ain’t it.
• Serial ADA plaintiff alleges that she suffered “frustration and humiliation” while using a hotel website whose booking system did not list information about rooms’ accessibility features. She also alleges that she plans to visit the website in the future, though admits she has no intention of actually staying at the hotel or even visiting the area in which it is located. The district court dismisses for lack of injury-in-fact. Eleventh Circuit (with separate concurrences by all three judges!): Which was a mistake. The plaintiff has properly alleged a stigmatic injury, though the district court can, of course, hold an evidentiary hearing to determine if that claim is credible and if the other standing requirements are met.
• And in en banc news, the Fourth Circuit will not reconsider its decision rejecting a constitutional challenge to the NSA’s purported spying on Wikimedia’s internet communications.
• And in further en banc news, the Ninth Circuit will not reconsider its decision upholding a $3.6 mil jury award (part of a total $13.2 mil award) to the family of a man killed by Anaheim, Calif. police for post-death “hedonic” damages—that is, the lost pleasure the man would have gotten out of life. Dissents: California state law (like 44 other states) prohibits such awards, which also weren’t authorized at common law. They shouldn’t be available in Section 1983 suits.
• And in amicus appearance news, next week IJ will argue to the Michigan Supreme Court that it violates due process for the state’s trial courts to depend on court costs generated from convictions to keep the lights on and their staffs paid. On average, a quarter of Michigan trial courts’ funding comes directly from convictions. Some courts even turn a profit for their local city or county. As one judge put it, Michigan trial courts are seen as the “cash cow of local government.” Click here to read the brief.

Friends, only a mere three weeks ago we told you about IJ’s challenge to an Idaho law barring African-style hair braiders from earning a living doing their craft unless they first obtained an irrelevant and expensive beauty school credential. This week, Gov. Brad Little signed a bill that was unanimously passed by the legislature and that makes Idaho the 32nd state to free the braiders from cosmetology licensing laws—using language from IJ’s model braiding bill. Huzzah! “Braiders deserve economic liberty in all fifty states and we’ll keep standing up for natural braiders until braiding freedom is a reality nationwide,” says IJ Senior Attorney Dan Alban. “No one should have to hire a lawyer or a lobbyist just to earn an honest living.” Click here to learn more.

The post Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions appeared first on Reason.com.

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