Daily Archives: 20 April 2018

It Still Is

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The Supreme Court is hearing a case, South Dakota v Wayfair Inc, wherein South Dakota is looking to overturn a generation-old ruling that exempts out of state retailers from State sales taxes unless the retailers also have a physical presence in the State.  I wrote about one aspect of the matter here among other places.

Here’s another, more critical aspect of the matter [emphasis added].

In a 1992 mail-order catalog case [Quill Corp v North Dakota], the court held that, absent congressional approval, states could impose tax-collection duties only on retailers with a “physical presence” within their borders. Congress, with its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, was the place to balance state revenue needs with burdens on business, the court said at the time.

Congress still is the place for such a decision.  This is a political matter, not a judicial one, and the Supremes, by overturning their “precedent”—which was nothing more than a recognition of who has law-making authority and who has only law-applying authority—would be usurping law-making authority to themselves.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.  South Dakota’s Attorney General, Marty Jackley, argued with a straight face that

the states—45 impose sales taxes, and nearly all support South Dakota’s case—wouldn’t make draconian demands of remote sellers….

Never mind that it’s already draconian to demand that retailers pay taxes they don’t owe.

And this from our favorite Living Constitution Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

If time and changing conditions have rendered it obsolete, why should the court, which created the doctrine say, “Well, we’ll let Congress fix up what turns out to be our obsolete precedent?”

Except for the small matter that the Court didn’t create this “doctrine,” our Constitution did.  That document says, in so many words, that all law-making authority resides in the Congress and nowhere else, and it says further that regulation of interstate commerce is one of the enumerated tasks of that same Congress and not any business of the judiciary.

Nonsense

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Germany wants to be excused from American sanctions against Russia, sanctions that were imposed over Russia’s misbehaviors.  The misbehaviors include meddling in our elections, and Russia’s continued efforts to meddle in our upcoming elections.

Germany does a lot of business with Russia. Trade between the two countries rose to €54.5 billion ($67.4 billion) last year from €45 billion in 2016, despite increasingly stringent sanctions, and German companies have invested more than €20 billion in Russia in recent years.

This is nonsense.  And Germany plainly has been sidestepping existing sanctions right along.  The desire to be excused stems more from Germany’s choosing to be hostage to Russian oil and natural gas supplies than anything else.  Germany’s voluntary hostage status is accelerating through its support for a natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would run directly from Russia to Germany.

No, the sanctions are intended to hold Russia to account for its misbehaviors, to punish Russia for them.  No punishment occurs if exceptions are given out over this or that excuse or for any reason at all.  Sanctions may well be inconvenient for some entities other than the target, and that’s unfortunate.  Nevertheless, Germany needs to shape up and stop masquerading itself as victim.