Tag Archives: economics

Federalism and State Taxes

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A Wall Street Journal editorial opens with this:

One great benefit of America’s federalist Constitution is policy competition among the states. Voters in Florida don’t have to live under New York’s laws, and Americans and businesses can vote with their feet by moving across state lines.

The editors proceeded to a description of State-level tax laws and the mobility of us Americans and our businesses in leaving States with high taxes in favor of States with, often markedly, lower taxes. But that lede overstates the case.

Federalism applies, often, with State taxes, but State-level business regulations are a different matter. It’s only necessary to see the outsize impact on our auto industry, for instance, or our pork industry, that California’s regulations have on vehicle requirements and on how hogs must be raised to see the lack of federalism in our regulatory environment.

With specific regard to California’s fuel requirements, there’s this from the Federal government’s EPA:

The Clean Air Act allows California to seek a waiver of the preemption which prohibits states from enacting emission standards for new motor vehicles.

The Federal government has long granted that waiver, and during the Biden administration, the feds made their latest move—overtly to refuse to rescind the waiver, effectively nationalizing a State regulation at the expense of federalism.

On the California’s hog-raising regulation, the Supreme Court upheld that regulation, which mandated the minimum space in which hogs must be raised, anywhere in the United States, in order for them to be marketable in California. The Court nationalized this State-level regulation—again at the expense of federalism.

If we’re going to preserve our federalist structure of governance, federalism must be restored to State regulations, as well as State-level taxes. Don’t look for any of that to happen under any Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Federal government, though.

Bidenomics is so Successful….

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Here are a couple of measures of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s economics ideology and his policies that flow from it. The Agriculture Department says that

From 2021 to 2022, there were statistically significant increases in food insecurity and very low food security for nearly all subgroups of households described in this report[.]

Statistically significant. In concrete numbers, that saccharinely put “increase” was from 33.8 million Americans were living in food-insecure households in 2021 to 44.2 million in 2022 (2023 numbers aren’t available yet). That’s a 30% increase in the number of American families at nutritional risk.

Here’s another measure. The Census Bureau says that

poverty made the fastest rise in a half century under Biden, with 15.3 million more Americans falling below the poverty level.

The Know Betters in the White House, though, insist that everything is just coming up Aces because of the Biden ideology and policy set.

Us ordinary Americans just should not believe our lying eyes or our rudely growling stomachs.

Mistaken Emphasis

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It’s in the lede of this Just the News article.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA) faces his first major tests as leader of the chamber in passing a federal budget that can please his party and still pass the Democratic Senate as well as aid for Ukraine and Israel.

It’s certainly true that Johnson and the Republican caucus in the House face tight deadlines (artificially tight, stemming as they do from an irrational fear of a partial government closure, but that’s a separate matter). But it’s on the obstructionist Progressive-Democratic Party-run Senate to work with Republicans to pass the House’s budget.

That includes, too, necessary aid for Ukraine and Israel, and for the Republic of China. The Johnson-led House already has passed an Energy Department appropriations bill that cuts $857 billion (over a period of time) from that department. Similar cuts in six of the seven remaining appropriations bills free up a bunch of money for a serious defense restoral and buildup and for aid for those three critical nations, while still executing an overall serious spending cut.

It’s important to note, too, that the “no blank check” position of many Republicans, which most of the press (not JtN presently) spins as Republican opposition to further aid for Ukraine, does not actually mean no further money for such aid. On that matter, here’s Johnson:

We all do [support aid for Ukraine]. We’re going to have conditions on that so we’re working through it.

Those conditions have centered on audit trails (most of which already are in place) tracing the money and equipment from their origin to their arrival at the front.

Such audit trails should be required on all spending that Congress enacts, with an attached requirement that the audits be thorough and have deadlines for their production. Further, spending should be suspended in those areas and on those programs where audits are late or incomplete—with no excuses for their tardiness or incompleteness. There also must be sanctions on the auditors, their supervisors, and the Cabinet Department and Agency heads where there is evidence of audit pencil-whipping.

There’s a Reason for That

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A bunch of DC Metropolitan Police Department officers are earning a lot of overtime income, with some earning more than $100k, and some earning more that DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser (D).

The department is struggling with recruiting and retaining officers, which increases the overtime load.

Yeah.

These cops are working harder than Bowser is, and through longer days than she has. That’s a result of Bowser’s administration’s determined defunding of the DC police force.

Mandating Supply in the Absence of Demand

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What could go wrong? Look at Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s mandate, through his Energy Department (run by the Secretary who thought it hilarious that we should—or could—produce more oil), that American automakers—Ford, GM, and Stellantis—make only battery cars by 2032. Along the way, look at his Energy Department’s proposed new rule:

The Energy Department in the spring proposed to eliminate the 6.67 multiplier….
Detroit auto makers would be slammed harder than foreign competitors by the regulatory changes because pick-ups and SUVs make up a larger share of their fleet sales. “The average projected compliance cost per vehicle for the D3 is $2,151, while non-D3 auto manufacturers only see an increase of $546 per vehicle,” the Big Three recently told the Energy Department.

That multiplier was an early regulation that made it possible to impute (however accurately or inaccurately) the miles per gallon achieved by internal combustion engines—itself subject to increasingly higher requirements under successive ED regulations—to the “mileage” achieved by battery cars. ED’s proposed rule change—under that D3 regime—essentially eliminates the mileage equivalent multiplier.

Combined with Biden’s requirement that our automakers make only battery cars by 10 (now 9) years from now, results in this outcome:

[U]nder the Energy Department’s proposal, it could make more sense to pay the government penalties than to increase production of EVs that don’t sell. This may be why GM is now throttling EV production, as Ford has also done.

It’s cheaper for the manufacturers to non-comply and pay the vig than it is for them to produce and pay the even bigger cost of not selling a government-required product the buyers—us ordinary Americans—don’t want and won’t buy.

And what does that preference for violating a law say about a culture of routine law-breaking?

Biden and his Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate can’t even get Rule by Law right, much less live within the dreary and inconvenient process of operating within the law—Rule of Law. And we Americans pay the price of that.