Compelling Interest and Racism

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors correctly decry President Joe Biden’s (D) race-based “equity” programs and diktats as taking our nation back to an ugly past.

By equity, Mr Biden means preferences for some racial groups over others to achieve equal outcomes.

And

Mr Biden sells his agenda as taking America into the future. But allocating government funds or privileges by race is a step back to an uglier past. … If applied on the scale Mr Biden hopes, America would become a nation of groups competing for racial spoils and defined outcomes rather than seeking equal opportunity for everyone.

The editors added this near the end of their piece, and here I demur from them.

Strict scrutiny requires that the government have a compelling interest for discriminating by race, and that it must use the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. If less restrictive ways can achieve the same purpose, the policy fails.

There shouldn’t be any strict scrutiny on such matters; the policies should fail on their face. There’s nothing in the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protections clause that permits Government-determined “compelling interest” to override our Constitution [emphasis added].

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

All of that plainly applies to our Federal government every bit as much as it does to each of the governments of the several States.

The Strict Scrutiny standard, as applied here, has been unconstitutional from the start and was an earlier Supreme Court attempt to duck its responsibility in applying our Constitution rather than seeking out excuses and methodologies for getting outside of it.

Government’s compelling interest is to defend and uphold our Constitution.

Full stop.

Repealing SALT

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John Tamny, FreedomWorks’ Center for Economic Freedom Director, wants the SALT deduction cap repealed, and he thinks all Republicans should agree with him.

Among the several Tamny rationalizations for why Republicans should leap at the chance to repeal SALT is this gem.

Repealing the SALT cap might not restore that vision [convolutedly, of limited government], but it would direct money away from Washington and toward states and localities.

No. A better way, the only truly effective way and the only legitimate way, to direct money away from Washington and toward states and localities is to end altogether the interstate transfer of taxpayer monies.

The money us citizens allocate to our various government jurisdictional levels are best left within those jurisdictions entirely. Taxes allocated to our central government should be exclusively for the Constitutional purposes of paying the national debt, funding a defense establishment adequate to defeating external threats, and seeing to our nation’s general Welfare as enumerated in Art I, Sect 8. Those taxes allocated to our respective States and lower jurisdictions are best left within those jurisdictions, subject to the requirements and specifications the citizens of each State set for their State.

The only legitimate interstate transfer of tax dollars is in response to a declaration of a regional or national emergency.

The Senate Filibuster

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FH Buckley, Foundation Professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School, claims Republicans should want to get rid of the Senate’s filibuster. After all, the filibuster, he claims in purple prose

makes it harder to get laws enacted, but it also makes them harder to repeal. With all the noxious laws on the books, Republicans should be the party of repeal.
Getting legislation passed or repealed in America is like waiting for three cherries to line up in a slot machine.

Then he blows up his own argument, and I appreciate his assist.

the filibuster, which since 1975 has permitted 41 senators to block a vote on most legislation.

Irony abounds. Buckley wants the filibuster removed because the thing makes it so hard to rescind noxious (or no longer useful, I add) laws.

In a nutshell: Buckley’s “most legislation” that was filibuster-blocked would have included a plethora of additional noxious laws.

Too, Conservatives, and most Republicans, favor smaller government over larger. How much larger would Government be today if that “most legislation” since 1975 had been enacted?

Like all tools, filibuster can be misused. Like all tools, the filibuster is a net good despite its occasional misuse.

Another Progressive-Democrat Gives the Game Away

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It’s Senator Mark Kelly (D, AZ), this time.

I’ll look at any proposal [filibuster reform proposal] and evaluate it, not based on what’s in the best interest of just Democrats, but what’s in the best interest of Democrats, Republicans, the country, and Arizona.

Notice that. His first “best interest” criterion is what’s best for Party—which he emphasized: not…just Democrats, but what’s in the best interest of Democrats…. His second criterion, cynically, is the other party.

What’s good for our nation and for his Arizona constituents are last in his list of who matters.

Also Too Weak

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Recall that President Joe Biden (D) came before the American people and touted a bipartisan infrastructure deal, to the tune of $1.2 trillion.

Recall, further, that barely two hours later, Biden again came before us all and said he would refuse to sign that deal unless and until he had, at the same time, a reconciliation-passed bill that had everything in it that was not included in the bipartisan “deal.”

Now Biden is back before us all, saying he’ll sign the bipartisan “deal” and then work on getting further bills passed that have everything in them that he wants.

So—which time was he lying: the first time, speaking from his heart when he said he’d refuse to sign the bipartisan bill unless he got the reconciliation bill with everything else in it, also, or the second time when he was speaking politically, to cover his political behind?

Or: was he simply engaging in the Biden Flip-Flop and speaking in whichever way gives him the most personal political advantage?

Or: does he not truly understand the situation for longer than a few hours?

Under any of those alternatives, Biden’s word is worthless, his commitments entirely unreliable. Any further negotiation with Biden will be just a waste of effort. Any Republican who takes anything Biden says seriously after this—and that particularly includes Senator Rob Portman (R, OH)—is simply exposing himself as wholly gullible.