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Frederic Bastiat, one of the brightest and most eloquent economists and authors France has ever produced, was born on this date in 1801. Some selections of his wisdom:
“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
“[T]he bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.”
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”
“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
“[A]t whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.”
If you haven’t read “The Law”, start there to get a good introduction to Frederic Bastiat. The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEE), has a free download, as well as many other economic writings available.
Happy Birthday Bastiat!
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The SCOTUS ruling against the EPA was a breath of fresh air (see what I did there?). Before adjourning until October, the Supreme Court decided that recent EPA rules did not consider cost compliance. The Washington Examiner had a good overview of the ruling. This decision will likely affect other recent EPA rules.
“The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Environmental Protection Agency pollution rules for power plants Monday, in a blow to President Obama’s environmental agenda.
The majority decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the EPA has to consider the costs of complying with the rules and sent the air pollution regulations back to the agency.
The EPA rules in question regulate hazardous air pollutants and mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, known as the MATS regulations. The regulations went into effect April 16. The utility industry had argued that the rules cost them billions of dollars to comply and that EPA ignored the cost issue in putting the regulations into effect.
“EPA must consider cost — including cost of compliance — before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary. It will be up to the agency to decide (as always, within the limits of reasonable interpretation) how to account for cost,” Scalia wrote in agreeing with the industry.
The decision will have repercussions for other EPA regulations that are key to Obama’s climate change agenda. The EPA will now have to examine the cost of compliance for the Clean Power Plan, which is at the heart of the president’s environmental agenda.
Many of the companies have either made the investments or closed power plants to comply. If the investments necessary to upgrade a plant to comply with the regulation aren’t justified when considering the operational costs, revenues earned and other factors, then the decision is made to retire it.
The D.C. Circuit Court Appeals favored the EPA in a previous lawsuit filed by the industry, attempting to overturn the rules, which is why they took it to the Supreme Court to decide the cost issue.
The D.C. Circuit was split in its decision, but the majority ruling prevailed. At the center of the case is the question of whether the regulation of hazardous air pollutants from electric utilities are “appropriate and necessary.” On that issue the court was split, but a two-judge majority agreed that the EPA could ignore costs in determining whether to regulate the utility sector.
The D.C. Circuit majority also agreed the EPA could focus solely on the utilities’ contribution to the pollutants of concern, rather than identifying any specific health hazards attributable only to utility emissions.
The EPA had argued that the rules are both appropriate and necessary regardless of the costs, and that it has the discretion under the law to act as it deems fit in regulating hazardous pollutants.”
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Chief Justice Roberts on Obamacare in 2012: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
This line famously echoed in Robert’s majority the first time Obamacare came before the Supreme Court, pointing out that it is not the business of the Supreme Court of the United States to fix laws (good or bad) that Congress passes.
Three years later, Roberts made an about-face on this exact point essentially saying with his decision that Obamacare is a bad law and poorly written — so we will fix it.
It really is a fascinating thing. First we have Pelosi saying we have to pass the law to see what is in it. And then when we actually get to see and experience the incoherence of the law, Roberts declares that Congress’s stupidity is not his job to fix.
But then the problem became that the Senate didn’t actually have the votes to fix it properly or repeal it entirely. Congress discovered that the law which was passed (state exchanges only) was not the version Congress wanted (federal exchanges too), but the Senate couldn’t get the 60 votes they needed to pass the version they wanted, especially after the Republicans lost Massachusetts a couple years ago.
So good old Roberts gifted them what they needed to have the law that they should have written with this recent opinion. And for Robert’s act of judicial overreach and maneuvering, Scalia’s dissent was particularly scathing:
“Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges…The Court’s insistence on making a choice that should be made by Congress both aggrandizes judicial power and encourages congressional lassitude…
Just ponder the significance of the Court’s decision to take matters into its own hands. The Court’s revision of the law authorizes the Internal Revenue Service to spend tens of billions of dollars every year in tax credits on federal Exchanges. It affects the price of insurance for millions of Americans. It diminishes the participation of the States in the implementation of the Act. It vastly expands the reach of the Act’s individual mandate, whose scope depends in part on the availability of credit…
But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites. I dissent.”
Scalia was particularly clear that the Supreme Court took it upon themselves to insert themselves into the legislative branch. Put another way, Chief Justice Roberts became the 60th vote in the Senate.
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From Scotusblog:
Decision of the Fourth Circuit is affirmed in King v. Burwell. 6-3.
This means that individuals who get their health insurance through an exchange established by the federal government will be eligible for tax subsidies.
Chief Justice writes for the Court. Six are the Chief, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
Dissent by Scalia, joined by Alito and Thomas.
Court refused to apply Chevron deference — that is, to find that the statute is ambiguous and that the federal government’s interpretation was reasonable.
From Scalia’s dissent: “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” From the intro to Scalia’s dissent: the majority’s reading of the text “is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so.”
From the majority opinion: “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them.”
The majority also acknowledges that the challengers’ “arguments about the plain meaning . . . are strong.”
‘In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase’…
The opinion is here
Justice Scalia’s dissent, via the WSJ:
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From Scotusblog:
Disparate impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act. Kennedy writes the Majority.
Justice Thomas dissents, as does Alito (joined by Chief Roberts and Scalia)
So the Court holds that there is a disparate impact claim under the FHA as a matter of statutory interpretation, but it the Court cautions that remedial orders in disparate impact cases that impose racial targets or quotas could be unconstitutional.
The Court emphasizes, however, that disparate impact liability should be impose cautiously. To avoid constitutional problems, statistical disparity is not enough.
Here’s the opinion
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In the past couple of months, I drew attention to a case that would be decided by the Supreme Court this term, which I felt was probably the biggest property-rights case since the Kelo decision 10 years ago. You can read the background here. In sum, the property in question this time is not land, but raisins. A couple, the Hornes, who were raisin farmers in California were fined for declining to participate in a government sponsored raisin regulatory group in existence since the Truman Administration.
Writing a letter to the Agriculture Department, they called the program “a tool for grower bankruptcy, poverty, and involuntary servitude.” The raisin police were not amused. The Raisin Administrative Committee sent a truck to seize raisins off their farm and, when that failed, it demanded that the family pay the government the dollar value of the raisins instead.”
This morning, SCOTUS ruled 8-1 in favor of the raisin growers, the Hornes. The majority opinion found “that the Agriculture Department program, which seizes excess raisins from producers in order to prop up market prices during bumper crop years, amounted to an unconstitutional government “taking.”
But they limited their verdict to raisins, lest they simultaneously overturn other government programs that limit production of goods without actually seizing private property.
The 8-1 decision was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, with the court’s more conservative justices in agreement. Roberts said the government violates citizens’ rights when it seizes personal property — say, a car — as well as real property such as a house.
While the government can regulate production in order to keep goods off the market, the chief justice said it cannot seize that property without compensation.”
Only Sotomayor dissented. She did not recognize the government’s fines a form of taking, saying that the rule “only applies where all property rights have been destroyed by governmental action.” In saying so, she indicated that the Hornes did retain some of their property rights, a logic that mirrored the ridiculousness of the Ninth’s Circuits’ opinion.
You can read the full court ruling here. The best quote goes to Justice Clarence Thomas who noted in his concurrence to the majority opinion, that “having the Court of Appeals calculate “just compensation” in this case would be a fruitless exercise.“
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One of the major sticking points regarding the free trade talks is a portion known as TAA, or “Trade Adjustment Assistance”. “The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program is a federal program that provides a path for employment growth and opportunity through aid to US workers who have lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade,” and this program is slated to expire at the end of September, unless Congress reauthorizes is. The funding source for the new TAA bill, as passed by the Senate last month, is a $700 million reduction to Medicare funding. But the vote neared, the pressure to change the funding source and spare Medicare reached a crescendo.
An alternative funding solution was prepared, one that is particularly odious. TAA, if passed, will be financed by “raising the penalties for misfiled taxes”.
Here’s how it would work. As it stands now, small businesses who pay independent contractor/freelancers are supposed to report that income to the IRS using a 1099 form. Another copy of that form goes to the contractor/freelancer. If a small business files all their forms past the deadline or not at all, it receives a fine. The new proposal, “would double and triple these fines.”
This merely serves to empower the IRS, who frankly, is the last arm of the government who deserves increased power right now. Because this measure specifically creates an incentive to raise revenue for the express purpose of funding another government program, you can be sure the IRS will be incentivized to pay closer attention to our small businesses and pounce on paperwork error.
This proposal is reminiscent of the program that was approved as a revenue raiser for Obamacare a few years ago. Congress initially voted to increase the fines meted out for small businesses who did not file a 1099 for anyone paid a mere $600 or more in a calendar year, but the backlash was so great, that Congress appealed it before the law took effect. Though this new gimmick is not quite the same, it is equally abhorrent.
The underlying assumption is that there are enough businesses who don’t file, or misfile all their forms, so they deserved to be penalized even more by substantially increasing compliance fines – all for the express purpose of funding something else by the government. Instead of the government making spending cuts to existing programs in order the TAA program alive, it chooses to target the private sector again for more money.
Congress has a deadline of July 30th to re-vote on the TAA bill. If it plans to re-authorize the program, perhaps it will find a better way to fund it than off of the backs of small businesses.
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Daniel Mitchell, a libertarian economist and Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute, offered an overall positive review of Rand Paul’s tax plan that was released today. He had three minor quibbles and one major concern with the proposal. It his his evaluation of Paul’s 14.5% business activity tax that is the interesting point for discussion — Mitchell asserts is a Value-Added Tax (VAT) for all intents and purposes.
Paul’s argues that he “would also apply this uniform 14.5% business-activity tax on all companies…. This tax would be levied on revenues minus allowable expenses, such as the purchase of parts, computers and office equipment. All capital purchases would be immediately expensed, ending complicated depreciation schedules.”
As Mitchell points out, the high corporate tax rate (35%) would be reduced down to 14.5% which is obviously a great thing. His bone of contention is the “business-activity tax doesn’t allow a deduction for wages and salaries” and therefore, “he is turning the corporate income tax into a value-added tax (VAT).” In theory, he argues, a VAT would not be a terrible thing because “is a consumption-based tax which does far less damage to the economy, on a per-dollar-collected basis, than the corporate income tax.”
However, the VAT’s place in other economies have proven to be, as Mitchell suggests, “a money machine for big government”, and therefore Mitchell cautions against its implementation in the United States.
Mitchell contends,
“The VAT helped finance the giant expansion of the welfare state in Europe. And the VAT is now being used to enable ever-bigger government in Japan. Heck, even the IMF has provided evidence (albeit inadvertently) that the VAT is a money machine. All of which helps to explain why it would be a big mistake to give politicians this new source of revenue.
Indeed, this is why I was critical of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan four years ago. It’s why I’ve been leery of Congressman Ryan’s otherwise very admirable Roadmap plan. And it’s one of the reasons why I feared Mitt Romney’s policies would have facilitated a larger burden of government.
These politicians may have had their hearts in the right place and wanted to use the VAT to finance pro-growth tax reforms. But I can’t stop worrying about what happens when politicians with bad motives get control. Particularly when there are safer ways of achieving the same objectives.”
Mitchell gives an alternative suggestion for reforming the corporate part of the tax code. He calls for “an incremental reform”, consisting of the following:
–Lower the corporate tax rate
–Replace depreciation with expensing
–Replace worldwide taxation with territorial taxation
His suggestion is that if there is enough support within Congress to potentially reform the corporate income tax (and replace it with a VAT), there should also be support for an alternative reform done incrementally, which would be far better in the long run than introducing a VAT for good.
So are Mitchell’s concerns about Paul’s “business activity tax” valid? Is it essentially a VAT? Pretty much. The VAT gets added to products along the way in the process of production and distribution, and is ultimately passed on to the consumer in the form of the final price.
One could certainly argue that the VAT is not a positive solution for reasons such as the fact that European economies which have the VAT are also in shambles. Also, though many of the VATs started out small, most VATs average nearly 20%. That would likely happen here too — while we still continue to collect an income tax. What’s more, it also tends to disproportionately affect small businesses because they often can’t pass along the cost increases associated with the VAT, and compliance will be burdensome and expensive.
Overall, though, Mitchell was pleased with Rand Paul’s plan, which is to be expected from a fellow libertarian economist. His points about the business activity tax are fair, but Paul’s roadmap is overall a decent one. As more contenders for 2016 release their tax plans, we’ll evaluate them here. Thoughts?
