The Arizona Supreme Court today unanimously reversed an appellate court ruling on the CityNorth case, saying it erred when it deemed the city of Phoenix's $97 million subsidy of the shopping center unconstitutional.
I discussed this in great depth in a series of posts, including this one. The purpose of the subsidy was to try to get Nordstrom's to move their planned store about 1 mile from a development planned in Scottsdale over the line to a development planned in Phoenix (the public cover story was to provide parking for a park and ride).
Fortunately, the ruling seems to be more procedural than anything else, and seems to slam the door in the face of similar private subsidies in the future:
Indeed, in today's unanimous decision, penned by Chief Justice Andrew D. Hurwitz, the five Supreme Court judges say that indirect public benefits -- like, apparently, beating out Scottsdale for the sale tax from Bloomingdales -- aren't enough to justify a giveaway to a private party.
Previous courts who've held that, they say, have misread precedent.
"In short, although neither [of two Supreme Court precedents] held that indirect benefits enjoyed by a public agency as a result of buying something from a private entity constitute consideration, we understand how that notion might have been mistakenly inferred from language in our opinions," they say. Now that they've clarified, the justices seem to be saying, the appellate court must examine whether the direct benefit the city of Phoenix gets -- aka. those parking spaces -- is enough to justify the giveaway.
For the record, the Supreme Court suggests that the parking garage is not, likely, benefit enough to justify such a tax giveaway.
"We find it difficult to believe that the 3,180 parking places have a value anywhere near the payment potentially required under the Agreement," its opinion finds. "The Agreement therefore quite likely violates the Gift Clause."
Kudos to the Goldwater Institute for continuing to push this issue.
Will we look back on 2009 as the tipping point where productive resources began to spiral faster and faster into the government black hole? A few stories that have caught my eye the last few weeks:
Federal salaries exploding, from USA Today via Q&O
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months "” and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted....
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
Thirty years later, this crony capitalism is back with a vengeance, accelerated by an aggressive program by President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership. It is wreaking havoc on economic recovery and fueling continued resentment among the American people.
The actions taken at the height of the financial panic last fall, with credit markets frozen, succeeded in preventing a systemic--and catastrophic--collapse. Since bringing us back from the precipice however, the Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] has morphed into crony capitalism at its worst. Abandoning its original purpose providing targeted assistance to unlock credit markets, TARP has evolved into an ad hoc, opaque slush fund for large institutions that are able to influence the Treasury Department's investment decisions behind-the-scenes. No longer concerned with preserving overall financial market stability, Treasury's walking around money continues to be deployed to reward the market's Goliaths while letting its Davids suffer.
U.S. banks that spent more money on lobbying were more likely to get government bailout money, according to a study released on Monday.
Banks whose executives served on Federal Reserve boards were more likely to receive government bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the study from Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, professors at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Banks with headquarters in the district of a U.S. House of Representatives member who serves on a committee or subcommittee relating to TARP also received more funds.
Political influence was most helpful for poorly performing banks, the study found.
"Political connections play an important role in a firm's access to capital," Sosyura, a University of Michigan assistant professor of finance, said in a statement.
To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done -- actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill....
The reading was especially painful since this reform sausage is stuffed with more gristle than meat. At least, that is, if you are a taxpayer hoping the bailout train is coming to a halt.
If you're a banker, the bill is tastier. While banks opposed the legislation, they should cheer for its passage by the full Congress in the New Year: There are huge giveaways insuring the government will again rescue banks and Wall Street if the need arises....
Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank's handiwork:
-- For all its heft, the bill doesn't once mention the words "too-big-to-fail," the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper knows, is the crucial first step toward recovery.
-- Instead, it supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for "no-more-bailouts" talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate's health-care bill look minuscule....
But don't worry, trust Congress to get at the heart of the financial meltdown
The bill calls for more than a dozen agencies to create a position called "Director of Minority and Women Inclusion." People in these new posts will be presidential appointees.
Aptera apparently wants to build electric cars using our tax dollars. They are looking for a manufacturing plant location. They seem to be homing on an one of the last locations on the planet I would build a new manufacturing facility:
At least we learn that the company is might soon be closing in on a new production facility as a result of a new application to the DOE's AVTMP [advance vehicle technology manufacturing program]. The loan application asks for a 10-year facility plan, which meant Aptera needed to actually come up with such a plan. Aptera's production schedule "calls for more than 10,000 units in the first 3 years and more than 300 employees," so it is looking for a new place to build the cars somewhere in Southern California, specifically somewhere in San Diego County.
High land prices? Hugely expensive land use and environmental regulations? High taxes? Really high local wages? Perfect, lets build an auto assembly plant!
The TSA may be unable to successfully seize explosives before they get on an airplane, but they are able to successfully seize the laptops of bloggers who are critical of their organization.
I am done using the phrase "dangers of government trying to pick winners" because it implies that they sometimes might be successful. They never are. When governments choose, they choose losers.
I get a lot of pushback on this, because it seems to offend people's intuition. They will say they know lots of good people they trust in government -- there is no way that all these smart, well-intentioned people are going to be so consistently wrong.
But the argument against government in this case (and in most other cases) is not based on the IQ or goodness of the individuals that populate it. The argument is that even good people in groups make terrible decisions due to problems with their information and incentives.
The information problem is one that Hayek is famous for addressing. In short, there is simply too much to know to make decisions for the entire economy. In fact, folks with high IQ's often do especially poorly in this context, because they tend to overestimate their own knowledge and problem-solving ability. And, even if one could be omniscient, it is still impossible to pick winners because 300 million people have different preferences and so one solution based on one set of idealized or mean preferences is going to sub-optimize for a lot of people (remember this now that we all have to have health insurance plans on the exact same terms and coverage).
The incentives issue is perhaps an even more powerful problem. We only have to look at the most recent health care bill and its progress through the legislative process to understand the power of incentives to shape rules and legislation in absurd ways.
Ethanol is a great illustration. Scorned by scientists as both bad energy policy and bad environmental policy, ethanol mandates and subsidies do nothing but hurt the environment. Ethanol generally takes more fossil fuels to produce than it replaces, it does almost nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, and it creates new environmental issues with land use as well as social issues from rising food prices. If you listed a hundred potential legislative initiatives to improve the environment and energy policy, ethanol would likely be in the bottom 10. But never-the-less, it is consistently the number 1 legislative solution adopted by western democracies, including the supposedly science-based Obama administration.
I used to say that if we could move the first Presidential primary out of Iowa, ethanol might go away, but obviously that understated the appeal of subsidizing the agricultural industry under the thin veneer of environmental policy, as demonstrated by these nutty large subsidies in Europe. Via Carpe Diem:
Biofuels production in Europe is heavily subsidized. Support has also been increasing in the past years and today stand at approximately EUR4 billion ($5.76B). Another way to look at subsidies is that every litre of ethanol consumed in Europe gets 0.74 EUR (about $4 per gallon) and every litre of biodiesel 0.5 EUR ($2.72 per gallon). The effective rate of assistance to biofuels (taking account of all measures of support) adds up to more than 250% for ethanol (see chart above). Biodiesel, and especially rapeseed crops, have lower effective rates of assistance (up to approximately 60%).
This structure of support and protection is not economically sustainable. It is rather close to economic madness to pursue the sort of self-sufficiency or industrial policy ambitions that have guided EU policy towards biofuels. The total cost of every unit of biofuel becomes far too high, which slows down the readiness to shift away from fossil fuels.
The biofuels policy in the European Union is a classic example of "green protectionism" "“ protectionism that is not motivated for the benefit of the environment, but which uses environmental concerns to pursue non-environmental objectives. The European Union runs an extensive policy for subsidies to biofuel production. Border protection increases the level of subsidy by giving a market support from consumers to producers. Standards are used to favour domestically produced biofuels. It is difficult to escape the picture of a policy driven by industrial ambitions rather than environmental concerns. The intention and/or the effect of Europe's policy is associated with beliefs of self-sufficiency. Obviously, trade is not considered to be an integral part of an environmental ambition to shift from fossil fuels to biofuels.
Arizona state government has managed to blow through a $700 million loan from the Bank of America in less than a week, and that wasn't even enough to keep things going.According to Treasurer Dean Martin, his office had to dip into internal sources to come up with the extra $73 million the state needed just to keep the lights on.
"Government spending in Arizona is out of control. We are more than three-quarters of $1 billion in the red for daily operations," Martin says. "As we predicted in our forecasts, just one week after setting up essentially the largest line of credit in state history, the state of Arizona has maxed it out. The governor and Legislature need to [rein] in excessive spending; we can no longer afford to continue spending more than we make."
The state is currently about $1.6 billion in the hole, and the $700 million loan the state spent last week is just the beginning of excessive spending of borrowed money.
In fact, Hollywood's portion of the stimulus package reveals an important factor of the Recovery Act: The money is not going to areas that would more directly stimulate the economy but instead to provide ongoing life support to deficit-ridden federal, state and local agencies.
That is the main impression I have gotten when reading the stimulus jobs data base -- the fake districts and BS accounting did not catch my eye so much as the fact that all the jobs seemed to be saved jobs in government agencies. I am pretty sure that had the stimulus been originally sold with its true goals -- to help stave off financial accountability in state and local governments -- it would have had more difficulty passing.
So do you see my point. The reason so much of this infrastructure bill can be spent in the next two years is that there is no infrastructure in it, at least in the first two years! 42% of the deficit impact in 2009/2010 is tax cuts, another 44% is in transfer payments to individuals and state governments. 1% is defense. At least 5% seems to be just pumping up a number of budgets with no infrastructure impact (such as at Homeland Security). And at most 6% is infrastructure and green energy. I say at most because it is unclear if this stuff is really incremental, and much of this budget may be for planners and government departments rather than actual facilities on the ground.
I had an employee in a truck towing a pontoon boat from a marina we operate in Alabama to a marina we operate in California. Apparently, we have grossly violated the law because to haul our boat from our own facility in one state to our own facility in another requires that we register as an interstate motor carrier and put DOT numbers on all of our vehicles. Just great. Who wants to bet that this will be an enormous and expensive hassle?
Update: Credit where it is due: The application online was totally arcane (and of course the help link and instructions links were broken) but the guy at the DOT help line was remarkably helpful and walked me through it. It was pretty clear that a lot of folks who casually transport their private property across state lines gets swept up in this net, and they actually were prepared to be helpful. I did have to laugh when the very first screen of the application process was to get my credit card number - I think this clarifies the reason for this licensing process.
My vote: mandatory income tax withholding. Taxpayers never see most of the money they pay the Feds. They don't have the shock of seeing the amount of money going to the government in one big check. Since most formulas lead to over-withholding, people are actually eager to file their tax returns to get refunded the money that was withheld in excess of liability (e.g. interest-free loan to government). Employers, who live in fear of violating one of a hundred thousand different labor rules, are more than willing to withhold whatever the government asks - they certainly aren't going to stand in front of the tanks to protect their employees' money.
California is taking this law to the next logical level of abuse: Increasing the interest-free loan that citizens must give the state. If free credit markets won't lend you money at a rate you can afford, force your citizens to lend it for free:
Starting Sunday, cash-strapped California will dig deeper into the pocketbooks of wage earners "” holding back 10% more than it already does in state income taxes just as the biggest shopping season of the year kicks into gear.
Technically, it's not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives. As part of a bundle of budget patches adopted in the summer, the state is taking more money now in withholding, even though workers' annual tax bills won't change.
Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less.
I am starting to feel a sort of anti-irredentism for California.
This is just so typical. In response to demands for transparency, the Norwegian government starts publishing ... tons of private data about its citizens. I wonder how much detail they put online about how the government spends the tax money? Via maggies farm.
Ken Lewis gets his payoff for knuckling under to Paulson and Bernanke on the Merrill Lynch acquisition
Kenneth Lewis, outgoing chief executive of Bank of America Corp., will get no salary or bonus for 2009, according to people familiar with the matter, the biggest Wall Street name thus far to come under the thumb of the government's pay czar.In fact, Mr. Lewis will have to repay the North Carolina-based bank more than $1 million in salary he has already earned.
The move was demanded by Kenneth Feinberg, the U.S. Treasury Department's special master for compensation, and was agreed to by Mr. Lewis and the bank.
After forcing Lewis to deal fraudulently with his shareholders, they cut his pay to zero. Nice. Lewis will do fine, he has a nice fat retirement, but it is still a pretty scary development for those of us who still care about contracts and individual liberty. Just ask yourself - what objective standard did Feinberg apply? Can't come up with one, can you?
Forget all the BS political posturing about the consumer -- the fact is that in the vast majority of its actions, the government is anti-consumer. How else can one explain Administration officials criticizing China for selling goods to the US below cost. "We're sorry, consumers, that you have been burdened with product choices that have had their prices subsidized by the Chinese. We're working hard to fix this and make sure prices go back up where they should be."
Licensing, trade law, anti-trust, even consumer products laws -- its all become protection of politically connected corporations against smaller and upstart rivals. Just look at how Mattel, whose sloppy due diligence forced a number of toy recalls last year, became the big winner of the new "consumer" law these recalls spawned.
Google voice is one of the more exciting communication products I have seen in years. I have a phone number for free, I can have that number ring multiple different numbers while retaining a single voice mail -- with a free transcription service. Awesome.
So, of course, the FCC is probably going to kill it. They will find some way to justify it on nominally consumer grounds, but they are really just doing AT&T a favor. The argument is that Google voice blocks calls to certain high-access rural areas. So what? Heck, I use it mostly to receive calls but if I made calls, do I really want my phone bill to go up by four or five times just so I can call some phone numbers I am never going to call.
Usually it takes an act of Congress to change an act of Congress, but Team Obama isn't about to let democratic"”or even Democratic"”consent interfere with its carbon extortion racket. To avoid the political firestorm of regulating the neighborhood coffee shop, the EPA is justifying its invented rule on the basis of what it calls the "absurd results" doctrine. That's not a bad moniker for this whole exercise.
The EPA admits that it is "departing from the literal application of statutory provisions." But it says the courts will accept its revision because literal application will produce results that are "so illogical or contrary to sensible policy as to be beyond anything that Congress could reasonably have intended."
Well, well. Shouldn't the same "absurd results" theory pertain to shoehorning carbon into rules that were written in the 1970s and whose primary drafter"”Michigan Democrat John Dingell"”says were never intended to apply?
It is interesting to see the Obama administration using the exact same logic to limit the reach of the Clean Air Act vis a vis Co2 emissions as the Bush Administration did to say the Clean Air Act should have not applicability to CO2 emissions.
Yet one not-so-minor legal problem is that the Clean Air Act's statutory language states unequivocally that the EPA must regulate any "major source" that emits more than 250 tons of a pollutant annually, not 25,000. The EPA's Ms. Jackson made up the higher number out of whole cloth because the lower legal threshold"”which was intended to cover traditional pollutants, not ubiquitous carbon"”would sweep up farms, restaurants, hospitals, schools, churches and other businesses. Sources that would be required to install pricey "best available control technology" would increase to 41,000 per year, up from 300 today, while those subject to the EPA's construction permitting would jump to 6.1 million from 14,000.
So the Bush Administration argues that the Clean Air Act applies to 0% of CO2 sources and they are accused of breaking the law. But the Obama Administration argues the Clean Air Act applies to 0.2% - 0.7% of sources and this is somehow a vastly superior legal argument? The courts rejected 0.0% as non-compliant but they will accept 0.2%?
My answer is: Nowadays (not in the original intent) is there anything the Feds can do that exceeds current interpretations of the commerce clause? In Raich, the Supreme Court decided that a product (marijuana) that was grown in state for personal consumption, like tomatoes in your own garden, and was used legally under state law, can still be regulated under the commerce clause. As Clarence Thomas wrote in dissent:
Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers
No kidding.
Unfortunately the theory that this personal use in California could somehow affect marijuana pricing in other states (by growing their own, they reduced demand for out of state weed which might affect prices in Arizona -- again similar to an argument that growing your own tomatoes might affect prices in another state) won the day in the Court. With the Supreme Court accempting this "butterfly effect" argument (because truly the demand of one person in a national market is like a butterfly flapping its wings in China and affecting a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico), anything falls under the commerce clause.
I probably haveposted on the electricity generating speed bump more times than it deserves, but Glen Reynolds linked this story and I am seeing it linked uncritically all over. Here was the email I dashed off to Instapundit:
The speed bump / power device at the Burger King in New Jersey is the silliest technology I have ever seen and I am amazed that so many people praise it or write uncritically that it provides free power. Energy is never free, it comes from somewhere. In this case, the energy is actually stolen from the car. The electricity power produced is equal to or less than the extra power the car has to expend going over the bump.
This electricity might be "free" if it is used where cars are braking anyway, say on a long down ramp in a parking garage, or on a suburban street or school zone where speed bumps already exist. But the Burger King example, and in fact most of the examples I have seen of this installation, are just vampiric theft, very similar to what the US Government does in many of its programs, creating a large benefit for a single user and hoping that distributing the costs in small chunks across a wide number of people makes these costs invisible.
So let me set the record straight. My guiding principle is, and always has been, that consumers do better when there is choice and competition. Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. In Alabama, almost 90% is controlled by just one company. Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down. And it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly "“ by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest; by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage; and by jacking up rates.
This is ENTIRELY a situation manufactured by government and specifically state regulations. States prevent out of state insurance companies from competing in the health insurance market. Think you have the same Blue Cross/ Blue Shield I have (or used to have)? Wrong. I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Arizona. You have Blue Cross/Blue Shield of whatever state you are in. If Amazon.com had to create 50 separate state entities all with wildly different regulatory structures, you can bet they would focus on just a few states and there would therefore be a lot less competition. Obama HAS to know this is true, so this is just a cynical argument aimed at the ignorant and uninformed.
By the way, what evidence is there that having 75% of the market in 5 companies is too concentrated? I have been in a lot of industrial markets that were far more concentrated than that which were brutally competitive.
That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance "“ just as most states require you to carry auto insurance.
Oh, jeez, I sure wish that were true. Auto insurance covers only catastrophic damages, such as totaling your car or incurring serious liability by hurting someone. It does not cover regular repairs, preventative maintenance, etc. Also, state-mandated auto insurance has a range of coverage caps -- if you want a higher cap, you can pay for it. No one expects their company to pay their auto insurance, and if a company were to provide it it would be considered a taxable benefit. Compared to our current health insurance system, auto insurance-like health insurance would be a brilliant improvement. Despite his making this analogy, this is absolutely NOT what he is suggesting. Also from his speech:
Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies
Update: OK, here is another good pairing, from the same source -- first, he says that a public option will not be subsidized:
They argue that these private companies can't fairly compete with the government. And they'd be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won't be. I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.
But then he makes this comparison:
It would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.
See? The public option will not be subsidized and will work just like public universities which are highly subsidized.
By the way, it is almost impossible for government NOT to subsidize such an entity, in part because of the way government accounting differs from private accounting. Government accounting is on a cash basis, so large up front investments show as a first year loss with no future expense implications. In operation, it means capital spending is pretty much free. And numerous charges that private firms take on, such as liability insurance, are not charged for on government books. I compete with the government a lot, and have investigated this dynamic in depth. Even why my costs are lower, the government, because of the way it accounts for things, often thinks its costs are much lower than mine and they under-price us.
Over 700 employees of San Francisco's BART transit agency make over $100,000 just in cash wages. This does not include lucrative benefits that probably add $30,000 or more to total compensation for most employees. (SF Chron, via Thin Green Line)
The Children's Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.
Around 2,000 families have gone through these Family Intervention Projects so far.
It actually undershoots the mark to call this "Orwellian," since in "1984" the government monitoring was aimed mainly at combating subversive thought and behavior. But the Brits are going one better, monitoring families to make sure their kids are eating their vegetables and getting to bed on time.
Incredibly, the oppositions response is that this is... not nearly enough intervention!!!
But Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: "This is all much too little, much too late.
"This Government has been in power for more than a decade during which time anti-social behaviour, family breakdown and problems like alcohol abuse and truancy have just got worse and worse."
Is there any voice left for individual liberties in England? Am I missing something here? This seems simply horrible. Is there at least due process involved, such that such measures can only be imposed as a result of a criminal conviction (I don't think so, from my reading of the story and comments -- I think this is like Child Protective Services in the US, with a lot of not-subject-to-due-process intervention powers, but maybe my UK readers can fill in more detail).
I liked this from the comments:
These cameras should be in MPs homes so we can see what the scumbags are up too.
Ditto for Congress. And how about a Lincoln Bedroom cam?
John Stossel has a post on Dan Rather's really bad idea to have the government restructure and, presumably, fund the media.
A press that is financially dependent on the government cannot be free. Even if it had formal protections against micromanaging by elected officials, socialized journalism would inevitably be compromised journalism. It would be no more independent than a subsidized farmer or a defense contractor.
Perhaps an even better example are state governments. There are explicit protections - not just legal, but Constitutional - of state's authority vs. those of the Federal government. Theoretically, it should be impossible for the Federal government to impose, say, seatbelt laws or restrictions on drinking age, as those are clearly in the purview of states.
But enter Federal highway and education money. Time and again, states are threatened by the Federal government that it will withold money from a state -- money collected from taxpayers in that state -- unless the state passes legislation of its choosing. If the Feds can use funding to push around California and Texas, what hope does the LA Times or the Houston Post have of avoiding such control, if their survival becomes dependent on federal funds.
Local swimmers have gotten a court order forcing the City of San Diego to chase away the seals from the Scripps children's pool in La Jolla. But it is not my intention to blog on that specifically, but on this bit:
The city said it would blast recordings of barking dogs to scare away the pesky pinnipeds at the cost of $688,000 a year. San Diego cannot use force because the seals are a federally protected marine species.
Please, oh please can I get paid $688,000 a year to play loud recordings on the beach? I have not even cracked a spreadsheet on this, but I am betting I can turn a profit on that.
On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new government-run health plan. Yet all Democrats -- with the exceptions of acting chairman Chris Dodd, Barbara Mikulski and Ted Kennedy via proxy -- voted nay.
In other words, Sherrod Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse won't themselves join a plan that "will offer benefits that are as good as those available through private insurance plans -- or better," as the Ohio and Rhode Island liberals put it in a recent op-ed. And even a self-described socialist like Vermont's Bernie Sanders, who supports a government-only system, wouldn't sign himself up.
Does anyone else find this reminiscent of Obama's decision to send accept a scholarship for his own education, send his kids to private school in DC, and then, nearly as his first action as President, kill the voucher program that let other African American kids in DC go to private school.
Jonathon Adler argues that Senator Feinstein grossly exaggerated the number of cases where the Supreme Court said the Congress had exceeded the bounds of the commerce clause. Feinstein said it was dozens of times in the last 10 years, Adler counts about two. I don't have my own count, but smaller numbers seem right to me -- just look at the extent of activities Congress currently pursues under the banner of the Commerce Clause. For god sakes, several years ago the Supreme Court ruled that federal marijuana laws trumped state laws based on the commerce clause -- even when the drugs are grown for personal use and don't cross state lines. As Clarence Thomas wrote in that case in dissent:
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
But what I found really depressing in Adler's post was this:
Adding up all of the cases in which the Court found statutes exceeded all of the federal government's enumerated powers, including the sovereign immunity cases, the commandeering cases, and the 14th Amendment cases, in the last twenty years still doesn't get us to the three-dozen-plus cases Feinstein claimed. Add in the federalism-related constitutional avoidance cases, and we're still a ways off.
Given all the expansions of federal and Executive power over the last 10 years, and the hundreds of cases in front of the Supreme Court, the Court has not been able to rouse itself more than a handful of times to declare that the feds have exceeded their powers under the Constitution? Bummer.
