Archive for May 7, 2012

The “Unprecedented” Individual Mandate

18
1 year ago
by Michael Weiss in

Sen­a­tor Orrin Hatch (R-​​UT) called the indi­vid­ual man­date “unprecedented”.

The Supreme Court is cur­rently delib­er­at­ing on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act’s “indi­vid­ual man­date”, which requires all Amer­i­cans to pur­chase med­ical insurance.

It has been pointed out by oppo­nents that the indi­vid­ual man­date is an unprece­dented require­ment to engage in com­merce. The Con­gres­sional Research Ser­vice, for exam­ple, observed that “it is a novel issue whether Con­gress may use the clause to require an indi­vid­ual to pur­chase a good or a service.”

The Cato Insti­tute came to a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion, that “[f]inding the man­date con­sti­tu­tional would be the first inter­pre­ta­tion of the Com­merce Clause to per­mit the reg­u­la­tion of inac­tiv­ity — in effect requir­ing an indi­vid­ual to engage in an eco­nomic transaction.”

Yet it seems that, from an exam­i­na­tion of his­tory, they are incor­rect. (more…)

Le Changement, C’est Maintenant

21
1 year ago
by dcpetterson in ,

The new Pres­i­dent of France

On Sat­ur­day, François Hol­lande defeated Nick­o­las Sarkozy in the French Pres­i­den­tial runoff elec­tion. This event promises to alter the tone of French pol­i­tics, and of the Euro­pean economy.

Hol­lande is a Social­ist. Unlike Amer­i­cans, Euro­peans do not fear the word “social­ism.” Euro­peans do not swoon in ter­ror at the term, like a del­i­cate South­ern belle.

The President-​​elect ran on a plat­form of decry­ing the “aus­ter­ity” mea­sures that have been hob­bling Euro­pean recov­ery from the Great Reces­sion. Rather than fur­ther cut pub­lic spend­ing and worker ben­e­fits — actions which appear to have led the Euro­pean econ­omy to con­tinue shrink­ing — Hol­lande wants to increase infra­struc­ture spend­ing and start once again to pro­tect France’s work­force. He even wants to (gasp!) increase taxes on the wealthy, rais­ing the top tax rate to 75 percent.

Across Europe, the cit­i­zenry may be reach­ing their limit with aus­ter­ity mea­sures that haven’t led to eco­nomic recov­ery, but have served to reduce worker ben­e­fits and stan­dard of liv­ing. Greek par­lia­men­tary elec­tions just brought to power two par­ties opposed to the extreme mea­sures that have been imposed upon their coun­try. It will likely be a mat­ter of weeks before a coali­tion gov­ern­ment is formed in Greece, but when one does, the world can expect Greece to reject the lat­est round of aus­ter­ity that’s been forc­ing the Greek peo­ple ever fur­ther into poverty.

What do these devel­op­ments mean for the Euro­pean econ­omy? And what do changes in Europe por­tend for Amer­ica? (more…)

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