A Stitch in Haste

A comment over at this Hit & Run post caught my eye:

Alliance for Justice = Liberal

Institute for Justice = Libertarian

Committee for Justice = Conservative

I, of course, added:

Justice League = Superheroes

Anyone know of other "Justice" organizations?

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh -- an area the size of Manhattan -- will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far.

--Scientific American, October 2001 issue.

loot:

--vt
1. To rob especially during or following a catastrophe (as war, riot, or natural disaster)
2. To rob especially on a large scale and usually by violence or corruption

--vi
To engage in robbing especially after a catastrophe.

--Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law

Under the common law of torts, trespass to land or chattels is privileged (i.e., not considered wrongful conduct) if it is done out of either private or public necessity. The example of private necessity one typically learns in law school, is, ironically, "any port in a storm" (i.e., a ship may trespass onto a dock in order to avoid damage or destruction from a storm).

If private necessity is successfully asserted as a privilege, then the defendant need only make restitution (i.e., pay for any damage resulting from the trespass or for any goods taken or destroyed). Punitive damages are certainly not allowed.

I therefore think it's wrong to call Katrina victims who are robbing stores for food, water or first aid supplies "looters." Trespassers, certainly, but trespassers entitled to assert the privilege of "private necessity." Of course, if such "acquirers" are ethical and if the logistics of the recovery and rebuilding allow it, then they should attempt to make restitution later on. But legally and morally they are entitled not to be condemned as "looters."

On the other hand, stealing televisions or laptops or weapons or anything else above and beyond the barest essentials for life most certainly does constitute "looting" and should be prevented by any means necessarily, including the use of deadly force.

Although media reports of "looting" are starting to increase, I have yet to see any news story or blogpost that has framed the issue in terms of "looting" versus "private necessity."

That's unfortunate, because the distinction is all-important.

UPDATE: PointOfLaw Forum has a good first iteration on this issue, by pointing out that there really is quite a lot of bona fide (i.e., not just food/water/medicine) thievery occurring. See also VodkaPundit and Marginal Revolution.

In 1933 a purveyor of shelled nuts named William Black found that the Great Depression was making even his modest offerings a luxury beyond the reach of most New Yorkers.

So he converted his chain of 18 nut shops into small coffee shops.

Hence the name "Chock Full O' Nuts."

In 1954, utilizing the new advertising medium called "television," Black had his wife, cabaret singer Page Morton Black, sing a jingle:

Chock full o'Nuts is that heavenly coffee,
heavenly coffee, heavenly coffee
Chock full o'Nuts is that heavenly coffee,
Better coffee a millionaire's money can't buy.

Well, Chock Full O' Nuts (now owned by Sara Lee) is making a comeback, with the famous jingle now being played in new hip R&B, Gospel, and Latin versions.

But it's not just the music that has been updated:

Chock full o'Nuts is that heavenly coffee,
heavenly coffee, heavenly coffee
Chock full o'Nuts is that heavenly coffee,
Better coffee a billionaire's money can't buy.

How times change.

Also, rumor has is that Alan Greenspan is growing increasingly concerned about the "froth" in coffee jingles. (Get it? "Froth"? Heh.)

Over at Bastiat's Window, my co-blogger Jeremy Horpedahl is chronicling the increasing incidents of Broken Window Fallacy regarding "Katrina and the Whoa!"

Just start at the top and keep scrolling.

"Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was, um, gone..."

Three quick alerts on the gay rights front.

ITEM: If Canada allows for gay marriage, must it not also allow for gay adultery?

Shelly Pickering thinks it is unfair that her husband's extramarital affair with a man doesn't legally count as adultery. So today, she's heading to court in Vancouver to challenge the law.
...
But Justice Nicole Garson of the [British Columbia] Supreme Court declined to order the immediate divorce, because the definition of adultery in common law does not include homosexual relations.

MY TAKE: Cheating is cheating, and wherever states (or provinces) allow for adultery as a grounds for divorce, adultery should be updated, either legislatively or judicially, to include same-sex adultery. It may be unfortunate that we have to point out that "gays cheat too," but every step closer to full equivalence should nevertheless be welcomed. (Hat tip to How Appealing.) UPDATE: The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the wife and has declared same-sex intercourse outside of marriage to be "adultery" for purposes of obtaining a divorce. Entirely as it should be.

---

ITEM: Back in June I briefly noted how a school board full of bigots in Georgia had first tried to block gay student groups by requiring parental premission (i.e., compulsory outing). They were vetoed by the state Board of Education. Now the local district has invoked the nuclear option.

When students began a new school year at White County High on Aug. 8, one element noticeably was absent: noncurricular clubs.

The proposal to ban the groups from meeting on campus was pushed last spring by White County Principal Bryan Dorsey and Superintendent Paul Shaw after a group of students formed Peers Rising in Diversity Education.
...
PRIDE ... began as a gay-straight alliance, but later tried to encompass a broader anti-bullying, pro-tolerance mission.
...
In addition to PRIDE, the ban also affects the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Students Against Drunk Driving, Key Club, Interact Club and Youth Advisory Club. If the clubs wish to continue meeting, they must find a place off campus.

MY TAKE: Remind me again how "it's all about the children"? At least we've gone from "Better Dead than Gay" to "Better an Empty Transcript When Applying to College than Gay." (Hat tip to Good-As-You.)

---

ITEM: "Oh Maryland, My Marry-Land"?

[N]ine same-sex couples and one bereaved gay man who are suing Maryland for the right to marry say they are not asking for creation of a new right, just the chance to share in one that has been fundamental for heterosexuals.

"I think the thing that binds us all is that we want a level playing field for our families, to have the same protection that other families have," said Baltimore engineer Lisa Polyak, who with teacher Gita Deane, her partner of 24 years, is raising two daughters.

The suit, filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union, was argued in Baltimore Circuit Court on Tuesday before Judge M. Brooke Murdock. The ACLU is asking the court to strike down a 1973 state law that limits marriage to heterosexual couples.

MY TAKE: I'm always nervous when major gay rights cases are not being argued by Lambda Legal (the ACLU is behind this litigation.) Still, if activist legislators and bigot governors leave the courts as the only avenue left to preserve rights, then so be it. If you don't want us to sue, then don't give us a reason to. I also find it laughable that one Maryland Assistant Attorney General could come up with no better argument against same-sex marriage than, "to legalize same-sex marriage on a state level would create a morass of legal confusion among states and the nation." So states are suddenly afraid of federalism? Go figure. (Hat tip to How Appealing.)

I started blawging a little too late to follow the tale of former law student Jeremy Blachman, who created a blawg called "Anonymous Lawyer" around a fictional persona at a large law firm.

Blachman has an op-ed in today's New York Times, arguing for a right not to be fired for blogging:

Weblogs are worth protecting. It used to be that if you wanted to know what it was like to work for a law firm or a beauty magazine, you had to have a friend on the inside.
...
If no one was reading, employers wouldn't be concerned. There's a demand for the first-person narratives people are writing about their jobs. There's nowhere else to go to create honest conversation about the working world.

So maybe it does make sense that the law should provide special protection for bloggers, because of the social benefits Weblogs provide. The simplest place to start would be to put the burden on employers to show actual harm, if they are firing someone because of her Weblog.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

I don't even support journalist shield laws, so of course I don't support a "blogger's privilege" and certainly can't see the logic of a "right-to-blog law" in employment.

People who bemoan "at-will" employment tend to forget that it's their "will" too, not just the employers. The right to fire is offset by the right to quit. The words "fire" or "fired" appear eight times in Blachman's commentary, but the word "quit" does not appear once.

Neither does the word "contract," either as noun or verb. The verb usage is more interesting here — if blogging is so important to you as a potential employee, then why not contract, openly and expressly, with the employer to include a "no firing for blogging" clause? Blachman asserts, correctly, that "blogs are worth protecting." Fine, then protect them — by negotiating for them in your employment agreement.

All at-will employees already have a "right to blog." It's included in the right to quit. Blachman is describing a solution in search of a problem.

Regardless of where you locate yourself on the spectrum between libertarianism and collectivism, and no matter how much reasonable people may debate about what the proper functions of government are or should be, I would hope all can agree that basic police protection is at or near the top of the priority list. If you're going to tax people for only one thing, shouldn't it be for a proper police force?

Apparently not. Exhibit A:

Facing a budget crisis, [Detroit] Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings announced plans Monday to lay off 150 police officers and merge the city's 12 police precincts into six district stations.

In addition, the department's command staff will be downsized, with those savings used to allow 35 to 40 police officers to keep their jobs.
...
Detroit currently faces a $300 million budget shortfall and a takeover of its finances by the state. Initially, the city officials had estimated that the cuts would require 600 police layoffs. ...[T]he department of 3,500 already is operating with 721 unfilled positions.

I dread to think what sort of things Detroit spends so much money on that it can't pay for police officers (officers whom Detroit certainly needs).

Exhibit B:

Dozens of recruits have been forced out of the [New York City] police academy after failing their first test — a new component of the NYPD's curriculum.
...
Police officials have acknowledged it will be challenging to find new recruits when the starting salary drops to $25,000 next year. This class came in under the old contract and will earn $38,000 to start.

I also dread to think what my beloved city may start to look like if it is being protected by people willing to work for only $25,000 per year. My father's pension is almost that much (he's a retired NYPD officer).

Detroit and New York are forgetting a simple lesson: you get what you pay for, and you don't get what you don't pay for.

Let's just hope these two fine cities are spared any future incidents of Exhibit C.

UPDATE: Exhibit D.

Chief Justice Scalia's opinion available here.

In other Scalia news:

Speaking before a packed auditorium at Chapman University, Scalia said he was saddened to see the Supreme Court deciding moral issues not addressed in the Constitution, such as abortion, gay rights and the death penalty. He said such questions should be settled by Congress or state legislatures beholden to the people.

"I am questioning the propriety -- indeed, the sanity -- of having a value-laden decision such as this made for the entire society ... by unelected judges," he said.

As is typical with Scalia, this is nothing but an anti-intellectual cop-out. Abortion, gay rights and the death penalty are not just "moral issues," but issues of due process, equal protection and cruel and unusual punishment, respectively -- all of which are most certainly "addressed in the Constitution."

And I am far more willing to question "the propriety -- indeed the sanity -- of" leaving insular minorities who are often the target of naked bigotry to the whims of majoritarianism rather than to judges. I see nothing "proper or sane" about preferring blind submission to activist legislators, or activist electorates, over our founding principles of limited powers, unenumerated rights and judicial review.

An oft-repeated lament against modernity, capitalism and especially private healthcare is the threat of "superbugs," evolved (note — not "intelligently designed") strains of bacteria that have become resistant to most antibiotics.

There is certainly evidence to suggest that antibiotics are occasionally used inappropriately (e.g., flu patients demanding antibiotics even though they are totally ineffective against that ailment). But are we "doomed" to an apocalyptic "Catastrophe of the Commons" as the negative externalities of ever-increasing antibiotic use spiral out of control like something out of a Michael Crichton novel?

Apparently not:

Doctors first identified methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria in the 1960s and hospitals have been fighting to control their spread ever since. MRSA carry a unique protein called PBP 2a on the cell membrane that plays a key role in helping to defend against antibiotics. In February, Shahriar Mobashery of Notre Dame University and his colleagues identified specific components of the bacterial cell wall that interact with PBP 2a to form a chemical barricade. The team has now made three new synthetic antibiotics based on cephalosporin, a close relative of penicillin. The compounds contain protein components that mimic the crucial parts of the cell wall that cooperate with PBP 2a, which leads to its deactivation and forces the bacterium to succumb to the medication. "We are the first to demonstrate this unique strategy," Mobashery says, "which could provide a new line of defense against the growing problem of antibiotic resistance."

Superbug bacteria are antibiotic-resistant for a reason. Once scientists discover the reason (in this case a protein on the cell membrane), they simply need to work around that reason and find an alternative approach to combatting the organism.

Stated differently, unlike the bacteria, the antibiotics are intelligently designed. And we've hardly run out of intelligence.

Perhaps the doomsayers should stick to global warming.

Perhaps the single leading advocate of economics as a tool of social control these days is my old graduate economics adviser from Cornell, Robert H. Frank.

Frank's research over the past 15 years or so can be summed up as follows: You're an ass. He repeatedly concocts theories of "consumer irrationality," meaning that people engage in behavior that he summarily designates as, um, "wrong" and in need of correction by economic or other government policies.

Now Economist's View alerts us to Frank's latest decree as a would-be central planner:

I argue here that low U.S. savings rates are in large part a result of pressures to keep pace with community spending standards, pressures that have been exacerbated by rising income and wealth inequality. Replacing the income tax with a progressive consumption tax would stimulate additional savings by reducing the price of future consumption relative to current consumption as compared to its price under the current income tax. Perhaps more important, a progressive consumption tax would stimulate savings by altering the social context that shapes spending decisions.

In other words, conspicuous consumption (i.e., "keeping up with the Joneses") is now a systemic economic crisis that needs to be combatted by replacing the income tax with a consumption tax (that such a consumption tax should presumptively be progressive is merely a gratuitous add-on to placate Frank's unrepentant socialism).

Some hasty stitches:

--There are people antediluvian enough to believe that the purpose of taxation is to fund the operations of government, and not to control people or correct behaviors that are deemed, um, "wrong" by self-appointed philosopher-kings (economist-kings?) who overlay their own subjective value judgments on to other people's decisions.

--Many of those same individuals are so old-fashioned as to think that people actually have a right to make decisions, even "irrational" decisions, for themselves, without interference from the government or would-be central planners and economist-kings.

--By the same token, there are individuals whose thinking is so obsolete that they believe people might buy things because they actually want them, and not merely because their next-door neighbor bought them yesterday.

--While it is broadly true that, all else equal, a consumption tax would tend to promote personal savings more than the income tax does, that can easily corrected by changing the income tax rather than replacing it. Simply exclude all returns to savings (i.e., interest, dividends and capital gains) from taxable income. Presto -- a tax-based incentive to save, exactly what Frank is calling for. If even more incentives are needed, then other options also present themselves: remove caps on deductibility of contributions to retirement vehicles such as IRAs and 401(k) accounts, eliminate the bizarre "use it or lose it" rule for flexible savings accounts, and scrap the deductibility of interest expense on second mortgages and home equity loans.

--Finally, I doubt that would-be central planners such as Frank really care too much about the savings rate of the rich. The real concern is always only with lower-income individuals. Well, if you want to stimulate savings by the working poor, then the best way to do so would of course be to enable them to participate in voluntary partial privatization of Social Security. It is hardly surprising that lower-income workers choose not to save when one-eighth of their paycheck is confiscated in Social Security taxes, while at the same time they are told that they will receive "guaranteed" retirement benefits through Social Security. Not saving when the government goes out of its way to get you not to save? Hardly sounds like "irrational consumer behavior" to me. Irrational government policy, perhaps, but not irrational consumer behavior.

Advocates of central planning always envision themselves as the central planners. Frank is no different. His "conspicuous consumption" canard is merely a convenient tripwire to advocate his pet policies and his need to see people "corrected" and "controlled."

He may be selling, but I'm not buying (which I suppose means that I'm "saving" after all).

As you may recall, the holding in the abominable case Kelo v. New London, No. 04-108 (2005), was that seizing property, via eminent domain, from one private party to give to another private party for the sake of economic development was a "public use" under the Fifth Amendment.

You might have thought it couldn't get any worse than that.

You'd be wrong:

A year after the county filed suit to condemn the 1,019-acre Ballardini Ranch, the two sides are steered toward a jury trial set for May.
...
"It's a very nice piece of property, which is why there's a battle over it," said Mike Chapman, the attorney representing Washoe County in its eminent domain case against the ranch's owner, Minnesota-based Evans Creek, LLC.

"This is really the last of the large ranches near town that has not been developed with houses," Chapman said, arguing the land should be protected as open space and parkland providing access to the forested mountains to the west.

So first we had Kelo saying that seizing land to foster economic development was a "public use," and now we have this Nevada county claiming that seizing land to prevent economic development is also a public use.

Can anyone say they're surprised?

Of course, restricting private development is nothing new -- property rights infringements such as zoning and historic preservation have a long and sordid history. But now such laws are almost extraneous. Local governments can simply invoke Kelo, or more correctly, "reverse-Kelo."

Because at the end of the day that's Kelo's true holding, which might actually be dubbed "Kelo-plus" -- "public use" now means anything and everything that the local hack politicians want it to mean.

The Ballardini Ranch case is different from Kelo in one respect, however: namely the other Fifth Amendment guarantee in eminent domain, "just compensation" --

A county appraisal last year put the ranch's value at $18.6 million. Evans Creek, which purchased the land in 1998 for $8.5 million, countered that the property was really worth hundreds of millions of dollars when development potential is factored in. ... The county's new appraisal puts the current value of the Ballardini Ranch at $30.2 million. A different appraisal prepared for Evans Creek by a Grass Valley, Calif., company estimates the value at $96.2 million, a difference of $66 million.

So the county is trying to steal -- or just to destroy -- tens of millions of dollars in economic value.

That's now what "public use" means.

Expect more creative definitions of what was once an unambiguous term, as local politicians grow ever more bold in their use of eminent domain.

Hat tip to Out of Control.

An Indian tribe that owns land along part of the Grand Canyon has an idea:

The walkway, with a glass bottom and sides, will be supported by steel beams and will accommodate 120 people, though it is designed to hold 72 million pounds, said Sheri Yellowhawk, chief executive officer of the Grand Canyon Resort Corp., the tribal-owned company that is overseeing the project.

The platform juts out 70 feet into the canyon.

I'm not an expert on air, ground or riparian rights, but I wonder how exactly the tribe can claim to own the airspace abutting their land -- do they own the land underneath where the platform would protrude?

And even if they do, might there not be externality problems here? The location of the proposed platform is admittedly about 200 miles away from the traditional tourist zone of the Canyon. Nevertheless, won't the platform spoil somebody's view of the Canyon from some angle?

From what I can gather, the Indian reservation that owns the cliff in question, and operates the tourism company building the platform, does not own both sides of the Colorado River. So what about the property rights of the owners of the other side?

If you're going to argue that natural landmarks should be preserved, then fine -- preserve them. But this isn't preservation, it's the exact opposite -- it's developing the land and changing the vista from every angle for the sake of a company that, Indian or not, is private and for-profit.

The Grand Canyon is either a public good or it isn't. If it is, then projects like this should not be allowed.

Several anti-gay conservatives are making quite a big deal over a sad case in Wisconsin recently decided by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals:

Allen Muth and his younger sister Patricia married and had three children. After they abandoned the middle child, who was disabled, the State of Wisconsin petitioned to terminate their parental rights because of their incestuous parenthood. After the courts approved the termination, both Allen and Patricia were convicted of incest and sentenced to years in prison.

Apparently tired of losing the polygamy non-argument, some commentators are now picking a new anti-gay perch on the slippery slope.

National Review:

But the court's reasoning was extremely bad ... in dealing with the precedent relied upon by the petitioner in the case. That precedent was Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court's 2003 ruling declaring the unconstitutionality of laws against homosexual sodomy.

Jeff Jacoby:

Lawrence was clear: "The issue is whether the majority may use the power of the State to enforce these views on the whole society through operation of the criminal law." If the Supreme Court meant what it said, Muth argued, his and his sister's convictions for incest were every bit as unconstitutional as the Texas men's convictions for sodomy.

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

There is no contradiction whatsoever between the holdings of Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) and the Wisconsin case, for one very simple reason: Lawrence expressly declined to declare a fundamental right to private consensual sexual conduct among competent adults. All the Lawrence court found was that criminalizing homosexual intercourse served no legitimate state interest.

There are, of course, extremely legitimate state interests in proscribing sibling intercourse, as anyone with a knowledge of basic genetics understands. The right to sexual privacy does not include the right to conceive children with the genetic problems that sibling intercourse can and often do yield, as this very case demonstrated.

The rest of the facts in the Wisconsin case distinguish it from Lawrence even more. The siblings entered into a fraudulent marriage; Lawrence expressly declined to discuss the gay marriage question. The siblings had children; Lawrence did not address questions of conception, adoption or parenting by gay couples. Finally, the appeal in the Wisconsin turned on some rather arcane legal principles -- habeas corpus review, the difference between procedural and substantive rights, and retroactivity of cases -- that hardly reach to the core societal questions of gay marriage and how it compares to incest.

The Circuit Court did not so much declare that Lawrence does not apply to incest as it declared that Lawrence did not apply to this case. And its reasoning is wholly logical and in no way inconsistent with "the big questions" of legislating sexual morality.

Incidentally, doesn't this mean that the Circuit Court was declining to engage in the "judicial activism" that conservatives claim to abhor? Go figure.

The quest by some to portray Lawrence as an apocalyptic harbinger of doom rather than a modest step toward basic legal dignity for gays will no doubt continue for some time, despite the fact that Lawrence has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with gay marriage, "Don't Ask - Don't Tell," gay parenting or any of the other various challenges gays still face, let alone questions of polygamy, incest, or other "slippery slope" bogeymen that bigots seem to be eager to find around every corner.

And even if one accepts that there might be inevitable non-gay consequences that will flow from Lawrence, is it really necessary or proper to continue arguing against the basic legal dignities of millions of gays out of fear of what a minute handful of individuals might do as a result of their own dysfunctionality or for mere shock value?

Is it really about protecting the rights of incestuous siblings? Is it really about exposing supposed inconsistencies in applying precedent?

Or is it about naked bigotry?

The Wisconsin case is Muth v. Frank, No. 03-3985 (7th Cir.) (2005) (PDF - 19 pages)

I'm not a futurist, but I fail to see how this won't become the future of premium television programming:

The British Broadcasting Corp. is planning a new service to let Web users download its television and radio programs up to a week after they have aired.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson ... said he hoped the service could be active by 2006.

Under the outline he presented, Thompson said the player would let Web users download original BBC radio and television programming from its Web site for as long as seven days after it originally aired.
...
Also not disclosed was whether the BBC would charge users a fee for the downloads or how it would protect the digital rights of such programming.

Of course, the British television financial model is much different from the U.S. model -- or is it? In England people pay "TV licenses" to fund the BBC, while in the U.S. we pay "premium rates" for content such as HBO. Why not cut out the middleman (i.e., the cable or satellite company, or Netflix) and sell the content directly over the Internet? Is it such a huge leap from iTunes to "iBBC"?

Anyway, hopefully this will eventually eliminate my Doctor Who access problems.

Only don't tell me you're innocent. Because it insults my intelligence, and makes me very angry.
--Michael Corleone, "The Godfather"

Of all the lies that Social Security obstructionists such as Paul Krugman, Angry Bear and the AARP like to repeat, the worst is of course the fraud of the "trust fund" — a piggy bank full of IOUs from yourself to yourself is not a trust fund but a psychosis.

But I'm seeing, with increasing frequency, another lie, one which the apologists use to deflect concern over increasing Social Security taxes, either through tax rates or through the wage cap (which, keep in mind, rises every year anyway).

The "tax lie" goes something like this: "It's no big deal when you pay ever higher Social Security taxes, because those higher taxes in turn earn you higher benefits after retirement."

This claim has always been facially misleading based on the progressive nature of Social Security's benefit schedule: All else equal, a worker who pays twice as much Social Security tax will receive less than twice as much in benefits. So the more Social Security taxes you pay, the more your income is being redistributed to those who pay less tax.

Whether you consider progressive redistribution of income a proper function of government is another topic altogether. The point here is that paying higher Social Security taxes funds other people's benefits more than it funds your own benefits. (And "other people" does not mean intergenerationally — it means people in your own age cohort).

That's old news. But here is where the obstructionists will typically play their shell game of de-emphasizing Social Security's "anti-poverty" goal and instead proclaim the program's "forced saving" aspect. "Don't think about the redistributionist aspect of the program, just focus on the fact that when you pay more taxes, you accrue more benefits."

Okay, let's focus on that.

Everyone who pays Social Security taxes receives an annual Social Security Statement. Mine comes every August, I blogged about last year's Statement here.

This year I focused only on the changes in the promised benefits over the past year. In 2005 I've paid direct Social Security taxes of $5,580 (i.e., the maximum). Based on Social Security's own projections in the Statement, my monthly benefit if I retire at age 62 does indeed increase as a result of my having paid another full year of taxes — by $27.

Using Social Security's own life expectancy tables, I should expect to receive benefits for 174 months (i.e., life expectancy of 76.5 minus retirement age of 62, times 12 months per year). So Social Security forecasts that I will earn an extra $27 x 174 = $4,698.

So, paying taxes of $5,580 this year yields me an estimated $4,698, starting 24 years from now.

You need not be a Chartered Financial Analyst, as I am, to know that this is not "forced savings."

And that $4,698 is not a lump sum at retirement in the same way that, say, a private account would be — it's an annuity, so it's actually worth less than $4,698, even at age 62, let alone at age 38.

In fact, the math works out to a -0.48% annual rate of return on my 2005 Social Security taxes.

And, of course, that number only represents direct Social Security taxes, the money visibly taken out of paychecks under the euphemism of "FICA contributions." That amount, as we all know, is matched dollar-for-dollar by taxes paid my greedy Swiss bank employer. So it actually took $11,160 in taxes last year to yield me that $4,698 24 years from now. That's a -2.43% annual rate of return.

And that's before inflation.

And that's before income taxes on my future Social Security benefits.

And that's before "progressive indexing" (i.e., the Pozen Plan) or any other reform plan that would cut future benefits. Always remember that the benefit forecasts in your Social Security statement are not vested and you have no property interest whatsoever in your Social Security taxes or the "guaranteed" benefits they earn — Congress can change those numbers anytime. See Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603 (1960).

"Paternalistically-motivated forced savings for my own benefit?"

Hogwash.

Why is it that unapologetic liberals such as Krugman and Angry Bear suddenly start lying through their teeth about this? If they honestly believe that our unified income taxation sysem (i.e., federal income tax, FICA tax and Medicare tax) are not already progressive enough, then why not just say so? "Sorry, but the poor are still poor, and we now need to redistribute your income to them not only through the income tax but also through the Social Security tax (and don't forget the estate tax)."

If income redistribution is the motivation of Social Security, then fine -- let's keep it about that. Why lie by telling people that higher taxes are "forced savings" for their own benefit when they're clearly not?

Tell me my taxes are going to help the needy working poor. Tell me that Social Security is an unviable failure that I, as a successful American, need to help bail out.

Tell me that Social Security includes several "protective undercoating" bells and whistles that I either don't want (e.g., disability benefits) or can't receive (e.g., spousal benefits that are denied gay couples, even married gay couples).

Tell me that all those surpluses in Social Security taxes have been recklessly squandered by Congress and that the "trust fund" is now nothing more than a promise to raise my taxes in the future.

Tell me that you simply consider someone or something to be more important than my own financial well-being and therefore worthy of my extra tax dollars.

Only don't tell me you're taxing me for my own benefit. Because it insults my intelligence, and makes me very angry.

POST SCRIPT: For those who know their way around an H-P 12c financial calculator, I'd be happy to share by email the inputs for my rate of return calculations.

I've blogged repeatedly about the fraud of the Social Security "trust fund," which is really nothing more than a promise by the federal government to raise either taxes or the budget deficit (or both) in the future.

Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg:

You owe $145,000. And the bill is rising every day. That's how much it would cost every American man, woman and child to pay the tab for the long-term promises the U.S. government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor.
...
The nation's three biggest entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — make promises for retirement and health care (for the elderly and the poor) which carry a huge price tag that balloons as the population grows and ages.

Add it up: current debt and deficit, promises for those big programs, pensions, veterans health care. The total comes to $43 trillion, says [David] Walker, the nation's comptroller general, who runs the Government Accountability Office. That's where the $145,000 bill for every American, or $350,000 for every full-time worker, comes from.

Does anyone seriously believe we can "grow our way out of" $350,000 per working American? Or that raising taxes to make up for the fraud of the Social Security "trust fund" is "no big deal"? Or that the tax-and-spend Republicans won't make matters worse with even more entitlements and pork-barrel legislation?

Or that the inevitable result of all this over the next 10-15 years will be dramatic increases in taxes and interest rates (and possibly inflation, if the government rediscovers debt monetization)?

The conservatives insist there's no budget crisis. The liberals insist there's no Social Security crisis. Almost no one in either cabal ever speaks of the Medicare crisis, and few mention the various parallel budget crises at the state and local level.

A pox on all their houses.

The GAO has a recent report on the state of long-term federal government finances (PDF - 94 pages).

Economists and political scientists often use location economics to explain politics.

Here's a typical example: Assume a public beach that is 100 yards long, like an American football field. Two ice cream vendors selling identical products are granted a government duopoly on the condition that their prices are fixed. Customers are located uniformly along the beach.

The only way the two vendors can compete is by deciding where along the beach to sell their ice cream. Customers will, if they're rational, simply go to whichever vendor is closer. However, assume that they will not walk more than a certain distance to get their ice cream, perhaps 25 yards.

Economics, and game theory, tell us that the optimal strategy for the two vendors is for each to locate on one of the two 25-yard lines (i.e., to carve up the market and not really compete against each other at all). But that assumes both cooperation and communication (or the more loaded term, "collusion"). Without cooperation, one vendor will try to encroach on the other's territory by moving closer to the "50-yard line." The other will reciprocate by also moving closer to "midbeach." Without cooperation, they will eventually be on top of each other at the middle, with both losing customers at either end (i.e., "goal line") of the beach.

It's actually a little more complicated than that, but it's the basic result, and is a variant of the classic "Prisoners' Dilemma" (i.e., that lack of communication and cooperation can lead to sub-optimal results for all parties).

Political scientists have applied this reasoning to two-party politics, with "the beach" becoming the "liberal-conservative spectrum." Theoretically the major-party candidates should "split the market," with the Democrat locating halfway between the radical left and the mainstream moderate positions, and the Republican doing the same with conservatives. But then the Prisoners' Dilemma kicks in and each moves to the center to try to capture moderate voters, and by Election Day the differences between the candidates almost completely evaporate.

Well, it seems to me this model of location economics explains perfectly the nominally inexplicable stories recently about John McCain supporting a bigot initiative in his home state, and Jerry Falwell doing a mini-flip-flop in favor of (some) anti-discrimination rights for gays.

Falwell is the easier anomaly to explain. He is locked in a classic "location duopoly" with Pat Robertson, recently of Sixth Commandment notoriety (see my previous post).

As the "backlash" against Vermont and Massachusetts fades into distant memory (i.e., 10 months ago), gay marriage is dropping off most people's radar screens. Even relatively radical fundamentalist Christians are starting to realize that the fire and brimstone are simply not coming.

So if you define the "beach" as the political spectrum, or even just as the conservative Christian political spectrum, then why shouldn't Falwell jump on this opportunity to distance himself from Robertson by moving to the mainstream on gay rights? Perhaps Falwell, who has his own agenda and his own earthly interests, is tired of being lumped together with Robertson. A relatively straightforward case of location economics.

McCain is more complicated. He's considered among the most moderate (i.e., leftist) of Republicans. Is he adopting more "midfield conservative" positions within the conservative spectrum? Is he positioning himself against other potential Republican candidates by pandering to the supposed Republican base (i.e., fundamentalist Christians)?

McCain has repeatedly shown himself to be a man of politics rather than a man of principle, so whatever his motivation in pandering to bigots, it is undoubtedly driven by politics rather than by anti-gay animus. That may be sad, but it's hardly surprising.

A new Georgia law that requires a valid photo ID to vote has been cleared by the Department of Justice, a necesary requirement for changes to voting laws in certain states under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I previously blogged in support of the law.

The law is still subject to court challenges, which opponents are now preparing:

"The decision to clear the measure now gives Georgia the most draconian voter identification requirement in the nation," said Daniel Levitas of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project in Atlanta.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a veteran of the civil rights movement, said, "It is unbelievable, it is unreal the Department of Justice — an agency who is supposed to protect the American public by enforcing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — is now involved in attempts to weaken the act.

"This decision takes us back to the dark past of literacy tests and other insidious devices that were carefully devised to hamper the participation of all of our citizens in the political process," Lewis said.

Showing a drivers license or other photo ID is "draconian"?

And the analogy betwen voter ID and literacy tests is flat-out invalid. As I blogged previously:

There is a fundamental difference ... between rules that keep eligible voters away from the polls and those that keep ineligible voters away. To analogize a voter ID law to the truly disenfranchising maneuvers of the past — such as property ownership requirements, literacy tests or poll taxes — is an insult to the past victims of those now-abolished restrictions.

As with the seemingly endless debate over Florida 2000, there is an important difference between "make every vote count" and "make every valid vote count." By the same token, there is an important difference between impeding eligible voters, which this law does not, and impeding ineligble voters, which this law does.

The Justice Department was right to clear this patently reasonable and intelligent law, and there is no reason for any court to invalidate it.

I hate having to do real journalism.

First of all, "What missing Americans in Canada?"

It all started with Fark, of all sources:

Two American models have disappeared into thin air while vacationing in Montreal. But they're both men, so even though one of them is a veteran of Iraq, Fox and CNN issued the following joint statement: "ZZZZZZZ"

I was only curious because fellow blogger Terrance of Republic of T. has been chronicling racial imbalance in reporting on missing female models and I was tempted to forward it along to him.

But then I read the actual news story:

Police are searching for two young American models who disappeared without a trace early Monday from a downtown Montreal nightclub.

I know from personal experience that downtown Montreal (also called the Latin Quarter) is where most of the city's gay bars are located.

[T]he two had hailed a taxi and were headed to the Red Light, an after-hours club in Laval [a Montreal suburb].

Some intrepid Googling revealed that the name of the club is actually "Red-Lite" and not "Red Light."

The missing men and Manzi arrived in Montreal early Saturday with their agent, Stephan Sirard, co-owner of the Edge Models agency they'd been working for in Toronto.

A googling of "Stephen Sirard" uncovered this unrelated story:

A porn star's first, and last, film about lesbian sex could end up boosting the coffers of Canada’s best known children’s hospital, if the agent for dead actress Natel King has his way.

Agent Stephan Sirard said he had approached Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children about accepting the proceeds from King's last movie, "Lesbian Lover," in memory of the 23-year-old Canadian star, who was stabbed to death last year in the United States.

A "Stephen Sirard" was also the goalie for the "World" hockey team at Gay Games V.

Finally, going back to the nightclub where the two men were last seen, the "Red-Lite" --

Laval popular after-hours. Mixed crowd (hetero & gay) on the party. Mostly gay on Sundays.

Unless Canadian bar guides use a different convention than in the U.S., "Sunday" really means "early Monday morning," which is when the men vanished.

So, not much reporting at all, and what little reporting there has been makes no mention of a not-unimportant detail.

I'm not going to editorialize about this one. I leave that to you: comment away.

UPDATE: The two men were found dead near the club to which they were headed. It is unclear as of yet whether they fell, jumped or were pushed.

Species of animal brought back alive. Interesting similarity in physical characteristics to human beings in head, trunk, arms, legs, hands, feet. Very tiny undeveloped brain; comes from primitive planet named Earth.
--The Twilight Zone, "People Are Alike All Over"

The London Zoo has a new exhibit:

Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans" at the London Zoo.

"Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment" read the sign at the entrance to the exhibit, where the captives could be seen on a rock ledge in a bear enclosure, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved.
...
"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate," [a zoo spokeswoman] said.
...
"A lot of people think humans are above other animals," [one participant] told The Associated Press. "When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special."
...
They are being treated as animals, complete with keepers, but are allowed to go home each night at closing time.

Oh yes, very impartial and apolitical; totally scientific and realistic.



Gimme a break.

This is merely a (semi-)naked publicity stunt with no educational value. It's nothing more than reality television without the television.



You want to learn about how "humans are no different from other animals"? Try an art museum, or an air & space museum.

---

Meanwhile, a zoo in China has its own primate issues:

The handlers of a smoking chimpanzee in a zoo in northwest China are trying to get her to kick the habit.

The 26-year-old female chimpanzee has been smoking for 15 years. Her mate died recently, which caused her to smoke even more.

Now, the chimp's keepers are worried about her health as a result of her intense smoking. So, they're trying to give her milk instead of cigarettes.

She started smoking years ago by picking up butts from tourists.

Could you imagine if this were an American zoo? There would daily protests, lawsuits and congressional investigations. But if the zoo is in China, it's "cute."

When I flirted with the idea of becoming a Bronx Zoo docent, one thing they told us was that, even though we were mere volunteers, we should never hesitate to demand that people put out their cigarettes (smoking is forbidden everywhere in the zoo). One cigarette butt can, if swallowed, fatally poison even relatively large animals.

But this is China, so we have to "respect their cultural differences." If they want to let visitors smoke in zoos, then who are we to be ethnocentrically judgmental?

I repeat: Gimme a break.

Historically, terrorists and spies have used libraries to plan and carry out activities that threaten our national security. If terrorists or spies use libraries, we should not allow them to become safe havens for their terrorist or clandestine activities.
--Official PATRIOT Act Website

Almost from the time when the PATRIOT Act was just a bill working its way through Congress, civil libertarians warned about one particularly ominous aspect of the legislation: the "National Security Letter" --

Simply by issuing a National Security Letter, the FBI can force Internet service providers, universities and other institutions to turn over customer records.

Even more disturbing, anyone who receives an NSL is gagged — forever — from telling anyone that the FBI demanded records.

Civil libertarians warned from the beginning that NSLs could be used to obtain, without a warrant, the user records of libraries (i.e., who had been checking out which books or using the library's public Internet access, or the library's billing records).

Defenders of the PATRIOT Act insisted that this was a bizarre interpretation of the law's provisions, one that the federal government had no intention of actually using.

Ahem:

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit to block the FBI from obtaining records from an organization that holds information about library patrons.

The civil liberties advocacy group released a government-censored version of the lawsuit Thursday.
...
The ACLU said its client "possesses a wide array of sensitive information about library patrons, including information about the reading materials borrowed by library patrons and about Internet usage by library patrons."

The case is ACLU v. Gonzales, and is before Judge Janet Hall of the U.S. District Court in Connecticut.

I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not fully-versed in all the nuances of the PATRIOT Act or how it crosses swords with the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment. I'll leave that to others.

I just find it limitlessly ironic, depressing and scary that the federal government can simultaneously claim that citizens and libraries have no expectation of privacy in their records while also asserting that it does have an expectation of privacy in the content of public court pleadings, to the point where it can actually redact the litigants' names. It boggles the mind.

The terrorists want to destroy our way of life. Maybe they're succeeding.

More thoughts at Crime & Federalism.

POST SCRIPT #1: The ACLU has already won a previous lawsuit against the FBI over pretty much the same NSL fact pattern, including redacted pleadings. That case is currently on appeal before the Second Circuit.

POST SCRIPT #2: Did you know that the URL of the official government website for the PATRIOT Act is "http://www.lifeandliberty.gov"? Orwell would be proud. Maybe next they'll reassign the IRS website to "http://www.pursuitofhappiness.gov"...

UPDATE #1: The judge in the case has lifted the gag order, effectively striking down this provision of the PATRIOT Act. The judge stayed her own order until September 20, however, to give the government an opportunity to appeal.

UPDATE #2: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily reinstated the gag order pending the government's appeal to that court.

UPDATE #3: The Supreme Court, in the form of Justice Ginsburg, has denied a request for an emergency appeal. This is not surprising, is not equivalent to a denial of certiorari, and mererly means that the standard appellate process will proceed.

I wouldn't normally fisk a mere headline, but it's Reuters, which makes it okay:

Americans Schizophrenic When it Comes to France

Arrogant is the best way to describe the French, according to nearly three out of every 10 Americans, but almost as many would call them open, a Le Figaro magazine poll showed on Thursday.

Some two thirds of Americans see France as a land of liberty and human rights in which people can freely practice their religion, and yet almost one third call it an anti-Semitic country.

First of all, "arrogant" and "open" are not antonyms -- a person can be simultaneously arrogant and open, so where exactly is the "schizophrenia"?

And even if the terms were opposites, wouldn't "divided" be a more accurate descriptor than "schizophrenic"?

Same with the religion question -- why can't France be both anti-Semitic and observe religious freedom? Many people think the U.S. has poor race relations, but many foreign blacks are eager to emigrate here. Is that also "schizophrenia"?

The 2004 presidential election went 51% Bush, 48% Kerry -- does that also make us "schizophrenic"?

Many Americans say "soda" while many say "pop." We can't seem to decide whether it's a "hoagie," "sub" or "hero." Schizophrenia?

Reuters should try to be a little less blatant in their anti-American bias. It's becoming almost comical.

Paul Krugman:

American families don't care about G.D.P. They care about whether jobs are available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost of living. And recent G.D.P. growth has failed to produce exceptional gains in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with inflation.

Some hasty stitches:

--First, if American families care about whether jobs are available, then why isn't Krugman happy about low unemployment? Oh, right, because a Republican is in the White House. So now unemployment no longer matters and we're supposed to focus on even less meaningful, and less reliable, statistics such as weekly hours, duration of unemployment and labor force participation. But why do I suspect that if unemployment were to tick up even by a tenth of a percentage point, it would suddenly become the only statistic Krugman cared about?

--Second, I'd like to make a modest suggestion: American families also care about prices, which have remained stable for quite some time now.

--Third, I'd also like to suggest that American families care about taxes, especially the Social Security tax that confiscates one-eighth of almost every American family's paychecks. Yet Krugman goes rabid over any suggestion of Social Security reform. Go figure.

It is presumptuous for an ivory-tower elitist academic like Krugman to profess to know "what American families want." There are too many American families, who are far too diverse, to be "spoken for" in such an arrogant manner.

The great, or terrible, thing about economic statistics is that there are simply so many of them that they will never all move in perfect syncronicity in an economy as dynamic as ours. There will always be some errant number that a malcontent (or a cheerleader) will be able to latch on to.

One statistic, over one period, describes neither the American economy nor the American family.

You would think an economist would acknowledge that. I'm willing to acknowledge that -- why isn't Krugman?

car·nas·si·al = A tooth adapted for tearing apart flesh, especially one of the last upper premolar or first lower molar teeth in carnivorous mammals.

Rubber toys, balls and plushies are all well and good for dogs like Diamond, but sometimes she just has the urge to give her carnassials a workout, and that means bones!

Diamond doesn't get real bones and I rarely give her rawhide bones due to the slobber factor. Instead, she gets Nylabones (and way too many biscuits).


Before...

Nylabones come in assorted flavors and two forms —
flexible and durable. I've learned to stick with the durables, as the flexibles are, um, not durable:


...and after.

She can go through a flexible Nylabone in literally a few hours — a durable Nylabone will typically last a good two or three weeks.



It never ceases to amaze me that her carnassials don't shatter when she really starts chomping down — isn't evolution grand?



Here are some classic bone pics from the archives:







And with that, we conclude our extended tour of Diamond's toys. Hope you enjoyed.

Next week, Diamond is setting up shop in a brand new kennel dog hotel as I leave for a brief vacation in Mexico City — maybe they'll let me take some pictures of her new home away from home.

---

As many of you know, Diamond was an abused dog rescued by the Humane Law Enforcment staff of the ASPCA (the "Animal Precinct" people — Diamond's rescue was filmed for the show but she didn't make the cut).

As a charitable donor to the ASCPA, I of course get a lot of newsletter-type emails and snail mail from them. This recent announcement, however, caught my eye:

To help teachers integrate humane education into their classrooms, the ASPCA will distribute free educational materials to select elementary schools across the United States. "This is an exciting and creative opportunity to reach lots of kids," says Dr. Bill Samuels, Director of ASPCA Humane Education. "Children who learn to care about animals and develop respect for all life will respect each other and grow to be compassionate adults."

Excellent — get 'em while they're young!

If you have a few pennies in your pocket that have yet to be taxed away, you could do worse than to send them to the ASPCA. They operate a no-kill shelter and a not-for-profit veterinary hospital in Manhattan, are opposed to breed-specific legislation for dogs, and are generally awesome people.

Carnivalized at Modulator's Friday Ark.

I'm adding California Yankee to The Elite Eleven. Yankee is a prolific and witty general politics blogger who has not let his common sense be trumped by blind conservative dogma.

Yankee replaces JunkYardBlog, which remains in the general blogroll.

--What is The Elite Eleven?

--My blogrolling policy.

Many blawgers, myself included, fear that the number of lawsuits against Merck over its painkiller Vioxx will explode after the disgraceful and partially invalid $253 million dollar judgment against the company.

The number we were all using last week was that there were already about 4,000 lawsuits going into the trial.

We were wrong. (WSJ -$)

The tally of product liability and purported class action suits over Merck's withdrawn painkiller Vioxx was calculated at a hearing in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. According to the figures, Merck faced 4,951 state and federal product liability and purported class action suits involving Vioxx as of Aug. 15, up from approximately 4,295 cases as of July 11.

Lawyers believe last Friday's verdict against Merck — which is expected to be reduced to around $26 million under Texas law — will encourage still more lawsuits against the Whitehouse Station, N.J. drug company. The number of lawsuits filed since the verdict couldn't be determined.

In the week since the Ernst verdict, I have seen several references to 10,000 potential lawsuits. If that was based on a starting figure of 4,000, that might suggest 12,500 total lawsuits based on the upwardly-revised 5,000 figure.

Merck intends to fight every single one. That's laudable, but it's also expensive. Keep that in mind the next time you're not taking a new drug, because it hasn't been discovered yet, because the pharmaceutical industry had to divert funds from research & development to litigation.

UPDATE: Merck is now reportedly considering settling some lawsuits that fit a "narrow profile" --

Merck's general counsel, Kenneth C. Frazier, told The New York Times in Friday's editions that Merck would consider settling suits brought by people who took Vioxx for long periods of time and had few other risk factors for heart disease.

Keep in mind that the decision to settle a lawsuit does not depend exclusively on whether a litigant believes he is right or wrong legally. It is a mathematical lottery based on the probability of winning or losing, which is in turn a function of the litigant's confidence in the legal system and the potential damages involved. Now that Merck's confidence in juries is understandably at or near zero, settling high-risk cases may make perfect sense, regardless of whether Merck thinks it should prevail in all cases.

On the other hand, I can just imagine the next gaggle of jackasses in a Merck trial jury room: "Well, if they settled other cases, then that means they know they're wrong — time for another quarter billion dollar verdict to 'send a message!'"

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
--Constitution, Article I, Section 10

I'm no expert, but how is this not an "agreement or compact"?

Nine northeastern U.S. states are working on a plan to cap and then reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the first U.S. deal of its kind and one which would see the region breaking with President George W. Bush who refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol

The move comes as California, Washington and Oregon are considering a similar pact — a dynamic environmentalists say could pressure the federal government to adopt a national law. Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gas reduction plan already adopted by over 150 countries.

Under the plan being worked on, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont would cap carbon dioxide emissions at 150 million tons a year — roughly equal to the average emissions in the highest three years between 2000 and 2004. Starting in 2015, the cap would be lowered, and emissions would be cut by 10 percent in 2020.

Each state legislature would have to approve the caps, said Dennis Schain, a spokesman for Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection.

I would certainly hope that each state legislature would have to approve the cap. But I ask again, how is this not an "agreement or compact" that would also require Congressional approval?

Like so many other limitations on government power in the Constitution, the Compact Clause got off to a good start but eventually was deemed too pesky and troublesome for the Supreme Court to take seriously:

The Constitution did not purport to exhaust imagination and resourcefulness in devising fruitful interstate relationships. It is not to be constructed to limit the variety of arrangements which are possible through the voluntary and cooperative actions of individual States with a view to increasing harmony within the federalism created by the Constitution.

--New York v. O'Neill, 359 U.S. 1 (1959)

So now it's not what the Constitution says — any agreement or compact — but just what the Court finds convenient — some agreements or compacts.

"Some" now seems to mean only those compacts that increase state power at the expense of federal power:

[A]pplication of the Compact Clause is limited to agreements that are "directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States."

--U.S. Steel v. Multistate Tax Comm'n, 434 U.S. 452 (1978) (internal citations omitted)

Okay, fine. I will ask a third time: How is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative still not an "agreement or compact" that would require Congressional approval? The express purpose of RGGI is to circumvent federal policy regarding greenhouse gases. These nine states are essentially thumbing their collective nose at President Bush, and Congress, and invoking a "mini-Kyoto." If the whole point of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is to account for the fact that "gases cross state lines," then that only strengthens the argument that policy should be federal rather than regional. And if the state officials behind RGGI are confident that the agreement doesn't encroach upon the federal sphere of influence, then what's wrong with asking Congress to sign off on it, just to be sure?

We already have too much federal government, too much state government, and too much local government. Do we really need to add "too much regional government" as well?

I don't know whether there are any parties with standing who intend to challenge RGGI on Compact Clause grounds. That might be for the best anyway. With this current Raich-Kelo, "too much government is never enough" Supreme Court, any further Compact Clause litigation might very well kill it off altogether.

Another one bites the dust...

Ever since I culled my BBC feeds I've been remiss in my Doctor Who blogging.

When we last left our hero, he had, um, quit. Bummer.

But now he's back, in his tenth and possibly most eye-pleasing form, celebrated U.K. actor David Tennant, previously of "Casanova."

Apparently there is much hype about his new garb, which is being dubbed "geek chic" --



Works for me, except the cheesy sneakers. Real men, and Time Lords, wear real shoes.

In other developments, K-9 and Sarah Jane Smith are returning for cameo appearances. I was never particularly fond of either. My favorite Doctor Who companion was Leela.

Anyway, the first revived season with Christopher Eccleston still isn't on BBC-America or DVD yet, though I'm told it does run in Canada. Can any of my Great White Northern neighbors help a fan out?

Hat tip to Arkanssouri.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is charged with presenting a report, by September 30, with proposals to simplify the federal income tax.

The panel's work has led to debates over fancy-sounding alternatives such as "flat tax," "fair tax" and "consumption tax."

A huge problem with the federal income tax (besides of course the fact that it's too high) is that it is too riddled with special provisions to special interests, groups that use their influence and resources to buy from politicians particular credits, exemptions and deductions. Some call this "rent seeking," while others call it "corruption." I call it the Politics of Pull.

But the real question, the one that most taxpayers care about, are not the individualized provisions of the tax code that unfairly benefit farmers or oil companies or auto manufacturers, but the broader provisions that affect large swaths of the taxpayer base. People may be annoyed about whatever tax breaks Halliburton may be getting, but they care far more about the tax breaks that they themselves have received in the past and hope to receive in the future. If the Advisory Panel recommends eliminating huge chunks of the Internal Revenue Code that only apply to small chunks of the economy, Main Street America won't really care. But propose tinkering with their tax returns and the Panel's work will occupy quite a few news cycles, op-eds and blogposts.

"Tax reform" and "middle class America" really only intersect at two points: the deductibility of state and local taxes, and the deductiblity of mortgage interest. In anticipation of the Panel's report, here are some hasty stitches on those two major topics.

---

The nonpartisan Urban Institute has analyzed the potential impact of eliminating the deductibility of state and local taxes from federal income taxes. Bottom line, there would likely be little impact: about $65-70 billion in tax receipts are lost from the deduction.

This is actually not surprising. Consider:

--The poor pay no income tax to begin with (the lower 50% of households by income pay no income tax at all).

--The lower middle class tend not to itemize their deductions and opt instead for the standard deduction, so their state and local taxes become moot.

--The rich already can't deduct state and local taxes either, because of either the progressive reduction in deductions built into the tax code, or the Alternative Minimum Tax, which does not allow the deduction at all.

--Those who live in no-tax/low-tax states of course receive little benefit from the deduction as well.

Bottom line, only upper middle class taxpayers in high-tax states receive any benefit from the deduction. In fact, New York and California alone account for 20% of tax returns claiming the deduction.

Which, as the Urban Institute observes, invites a intriguing possibility: Eliminate the deduction of state and local taxes while also eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax. Such an move would be relatively revenue-neutral (UI estimates that tax receipts would increase by a nominal $21.4 billion in 2006) and could be politically viable (e.g., all us rich New Yorkers wouldn't care, since it would be essentially a wash). The increasing resentment toward the AMT, even just on grounds of the extra time and paperwork, could make such a proposal palatable, despite the likely knee-jerk reaction to the elimination of a "sacred cow" deduction.

Such a plan could be dismissed as a Hobson's Choice, but with AMT liability set to explode starting in 2006, this reform could be successfully sold to taxpayers. On the other hand, this Administration has been especially pathetic at selling Social Security reform, so who knows.

---

The other "sacred cow" tax deduction is the write-off for mortgage interest on a primary residence. The President imposed the following constraint on the Panel:

"Options should...share the burdens and benefits of the Federal tax structure in an appropriately progressive manner while recognizing the importance of homeownership and charity in American society..."

Some have interpreted this to mean that the mortgage interest deduction is off the table, but as the Tax Foundation, reports, others are not so sure:

Linda Goold, tax counsel for the National Association of Realtors, said it's possible that the tax panel may recommend replacing the interest deduction with a tax credit that would be more beneficial to lower-income Americans. They usually don't have enough deductions to justify itemizing, a prerequisite for taking advantage of the mortgage interest deduction.

The Tax Foundation is ambivalent:

Unfortunately, that would make a bad tax policy worse by likely carving even more out of the federal tax base, requiring higher overall tax rates, and further entrenching its political support, all of which make fundamental tax reform even more difficult than it already is.

They would rather see no tax benefits of any kind, with lower tax rates for all instead.

I can certainly sympathize — as I have blogged previously, "take care of tax rates and tax simplification will take care of itself." But there's another consideration, both economic and moral, that makes eliminating the existing deductibility of mortgage interest problematic.

Yes, tax policy distorts economic decisions, and subsidies (which tax deductions essentially are) result in overconsumption (housing bubble, anyone?). But even greater distortions and misallocations can result from breaking the promise of deductibility for those who have already financed homes.

There's a analogy in the law that makes my point. All lawyers and many lay people know that a mere promise, without more, is not a contract and is not enforceable as a contract, with one important exception: the case of detrimental reliance.

Here's an example of detrimental reliance. Let's say an impoverished nephew earns a partial scholarship to attend a particular private university. His rich uncle promises instead to pay in full for the nephew to attend the uncle's alma mater. The nephew turns down the partial scholarship and enrolls in the uncle's college. There is no contract and the nephew is under no obligation to the uncle, who is merely making a promise. Halfway through the nephew's education, the uncle changes his mind and cuts the nephew off. Can the nephew sue the uncle for the remaining tuition even though there was no contract? Yes! If the nephew reasonably relied, to his detriment, on the uncle's promise, then that promise is legally binding even in the absence of a contract.

When it comes to the deductibility of mortgage interest, the law may be different from the nephew-uncle example, but the logic isn't. It is fundamentally unfair to induce taxpayers to purchase and finance a home based in part on the current tax code, and then suddenly change the rules on them in the name of "tax reform." Eliminating mortgage interest deductibility would be far more disruptive to many taxpayers than tweaking their marginal rates or removing some minor deduction. It must not be done lightly.

I don't know what the answer is and I am not saying that mortgage interest should indeed be a "sacred cow" within the tax code. Grandfathering existing mortgages is probably unworkable and is arguably even more unfair than the detrimental reliance problem. Perhaps the "credit instead of deduction" idea could be structured in a fair way for existing mortgage payers. I don't know.

But I do know that it is incomplete to lament only the macroeconomic effects of a tax policy going forward while ignoring the impact of changing that tax policy on those who have already made life-altering decisions in reliance on it. And to do so in the name of a "fair tax" is especially obnoxious. The Internal Revenue Code may not have to be permanently immutable, but neither should it be a crap-shoot.

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Finally, there are some who think the Panel may propose a national sales tax or consumption tax. I certainly hope not.

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UPDATE: In the aftermath of Katrina, the Commission has delayed the release of their report until the end of October.

The latest round of proposed military base closings has some politicians crying foul:

The Air Force wants to retire aging aircraft from many Guard units, close or consolidate some of their bases and give some units new missions, like flying remotely piloted Predator aircraft, that are better suited to today's national security environment, Air Force officials say.

But doing that would leave more than two dozen states without emergency aircraft to fight fires, recover from hurricanes and cope with other natural disasters, lawmakers say.
...
[Pennsylvania Governor Ed] Rendell said closing the base would infringe on his authority to deploy Pennsylvania guard personnel and would strip the state's efforts to prevent a terrorist attack and respond to natural disasters.

To the extent that the federal government has contractual obligations to the states to provide a certain minimum support of National Guard operations, then the affected states may have a valid gripe.

But the "local disaster" argument is a totally different matter and a totally invalid argument. It is not, or at least it should not be, the federal government's obligation to subsidize states' disaster preparedness infrastructure.

Obviously individual states are not allowed to acquire their own fighter jets or nuclear submarines. But there is nothing whatsoever preventing states from acquiring their own rescue planes, helicopters or boats, nor is there any reason why those states especially prone to forest fires, hurricanes or earthquakes cannot incorporate emergency preparedness into their own public safety infrastructure.

Nothing, that is, except their own fiscal stinginess. They want the airplanes — they just don't want to have to pay for them.

Why exactly should taxpayers in New York pay for National Guard units in Pennsylvania that serve no purpose except to benefit Pennsylvanians? Protecting our air space is a truly federal public good and should be provided, and paid for, with federal tax dollars. But local disasters are, um, local and preparations for them should be provided, and paid for, locally.

State politicians should not try to bolster their contractual arguments with "local disaster" appeals to the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling. If they have legal arguments to make, then make them. But don't tell me that I should have to pay for their local problems.

UPDATE #1: Pennsylvania Governor Rendell and the state's two (Republican) senators are now suing to block the closure of a Reserve unit. Of course, if the State of Pennsylvania offered to fully fund all the expenses of the unit from now on, then the Pentagon probably wouldn't mind keeping the unit active. But somehow I doubt that's what the Keystone Cops Politicians have in mind.

More thoughts at Arkanssouri.

UPDATE #2: Pennsylvania has won its lawsuit against the Department of Defense. You can now expect any base closing that affects any National Guard unit to be challenged by state politicians. I still say that if a state wants to maintain a unit for, say, emergency preparendness, then let the state pay for it.

If you want to see someone in a total state of panic over the possibility of Social Security reform actually occurring, see this post over at Angry Bear that tries to fisk this Cato fact sheet. You can also see my counterfisk in the comments.

Words Angry Bear uses about Cato:
--propaganda
--lies
--pathetic
--fraud
--scam
--silly
--nonsense

(As regular readers of my blog know, the proper usage is, of course, "utter nonsense").

I think it's always a good sign when the opposition to your position becomes increasingly shrill. It shows that their standard distortions and misrepresentations are no longer effective and that they're running out of gobbledygook (another good word Angry Bear might want to add to his list).

My Social Security archive is here.

Hawaii implements price controls on gasoline:

The caps apply as of next week, when a new law goes into effect. It lets Hawaii set a maximum wholesale price at which gasoline can be sold. The limit is based on the weekly average of spot prices in Los Angeles and New York, and on the U-S Gulf Coast. The law doesn't put a cap on retail prices.

Robert Kaminsky observes:

I'm sure Hawaiians would rather have a plentiful supply of gasoline at $3/gallon than have the price be $2.50/gallon but not actually have any available.

That's certainly true, assuming that politics stays out of the rationing. But of course, if certain people are able to invoke the Politics of Pull, based on, say, their occupation (police officers, firefighters and schoolteachers have to get to work, no?), then the egalitarian nature of these government-created shortages suddenly evaporates — everyone suffers equally, but some suffer more equally than others.

(For the record, since the cap is at the wholesale level rather than the retail level, there won't be any visible shortages — gas stations won't run out of gas, they'll simply raise their prices to reflect their now-reduced price-controlled inventories. That's right — a wholesale price ceiling can actually lead to higher retail prices. Ain't central planning grand?)

More thoughts at Eclectic Econoclast, Knowledge Problem, Coyote Blog.

More on Hawaii's gasoline market from the Federal Trade Commission. See also my previous post on a related Supreme Court case, Chevron v. Lingle, No. 04-163 (2005).

UPDATE: OpinionJournal has more --

Made up primarily of liberal Democrats with no economics training, no business background, an open disdain for the free market, and a lust for price caps (except on state taxes), lawmakers say they have to "do something" about the high price of gasoline. Never mind that oil prices have skyrocketed everywhere thanks to increasing demand in the world market and rapid growth in China and India.

In other words, the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling.

So why bring back price controls more than 30 years after Nixon tried them and failed miserably, causing shortages, rationing, inflation and an economic crisis? It's hard to find a reason, other than to retaliate against the big oil companies, namely Chevron, which many Democrats tried to punish unsuccessfully in court.

In other words, the Politics of Pull.

Explain to me again why "activist legislators" are so much better than "activist judges"?

A few days ago Paul Krugman got a fat slice of "get over it" pie when he tried to engage in