The Heritage Insider: Ethanol isn't good for the environment, did Obama violate the "take care clause"? why the northeast is the new rust belt, and more
January 23, 2016
Aside from costing taxpayers and motorists, ethanol isn’t even good for the environment. “Today, about 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop goes to produce ethanol. According to an Associated Press investigation, [Renewable Fuel Standard]-induced expansion of corn production ‘wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies.’ About 8.5 million of acres of grasslands and wetlands were converted to corn plantations during 2008-2011, according to the Environmental Working Group. Other farm subsidy programs also played a role, but the RFS was the key driver.
“Nitrogen fertilizer runoff from the Corn Belt makes its way down the Mississippi River system to the Gulf of Mexico, where it boosts ‘the growth of enormous algae fields. When the algae die, the decomposition consumes oxygen, leaving behind a zone where aquatic life cannot survive,’ the AP reported. In 2013, the dead zone ‘covered 5,800 square miles of sea floor, about the size of Connecticut.’
“One of Congress’s ostensible purposes in creating the RFS was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. transportation sector. But there’s a problem: Growing corn and manufacturing ethanol require fertilizer and energy inputs that emit greenhouse gases. Moreover, when wetlands and grasslands are converted to corn crops, carbon locked in soils is released and forms CO2. Recent analysis by the Environmental Working Group based on EPA data finds that ‘last year’s production and use of 14 billion gallons of corn ethanol resulted in 27 million tons more carbon emissions than if Americans had used straight gasoline in their vehicles.’” —Marlo Lewis, “Environmental Disaster: The Renewable Fuel Standard,” Capital Research Center, July 2015
The Supreme Court has decided to review “the Obama administration’s immigration guidance granting de facto legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented residents in the United States,” and has added a question that was not asked by the parties to the case: “Whether the Guidance violates the Take Care Clause of the Constitution, Art. II, §3.” “While opponents of judicial activism might be horrified by this turn of events, we should consider why the court seems to have volunteered to involve itself in what has traditionally been seen as a ‘political question’ not subject to judicial intervention. […]
“Basically, traditional constraints on executive lawlessness have diminished. Consider Congress’s strongest weapon in defending it prerogatives, the power of the purse. Congress’s budget process seems broken beyond at least immediate repair, with the result that it presents one massive, take-it-or-leave-it spending bill to the president each year that covers most spending. This is hardly conducive to discrete exercises of congressional power. Meanwhile, presidents have increasingly found ways to spend money ‘off-budget’ by moving money around accounts in legally questionable ways, with generally no one having standing to sue to stop them. Finally, the public doesn’t seem to understand that under our constitutional system, if Congress passes a bill and the president vetoes it, it’s the president, not Congress, who has ‘shut down’ whatever hasn’t been funded. These factors have combined to severely weaken the power of the purse. […]
“[I]t seems that at least some justices appreciate that the separation of powers is endangered by the growth of unilateral executive action, and want to consider whether the court should take a more active role in policing the boundaries between the president’s powers and Congress’s.” —David Bernstein, “Supreme Court Bombshell: Does Obama’s Immigration Guidance Violate the Take Care Clause?” Washington Post, January 19
More on the Constitution and the Rule of Law
Why the Northeast is becoming America’s new Rust Belt: “Unfortunately, many states in the pro-tax Northeast have raised taxes in recent years. For example, Vermont just passed $63 million in new taxes, providing plenty of headaches for taxpayers and business owners. The Green Mountain State’s $63 million tax binge includes property tax hikes, a transfer tax hike and a new soft drink tax, among others. Not to be outdone by Vermont, Connecticut passed $1.1 billion in new taxes, including about $700 million in new taxes for businesses. This is not surprising since Connecticut has frequently raised taxes over the last 25 years. […] Although with the recent threats by General Electric and Aetna to leave Connecticut, perhaps things could get worse.
“Furthermore, the Northeast also imposes high personal and corporate income tax rates. Most of the states in the Northeast levy personal and corporate income taxes high above the national average. […]
“Not only does the Northeast tax heavily, but this region also has high per capita spending. [T]he average state government in the Northeast (not including New Hampshire) already spends more than one-third more per capita than across the United States as a whole ($7,271 versus $5,344 of state spending per resident). Since the Northeastern states tend to have highly uncompetitive tax systems, there is a significant incentive for business owners and entrepreneurs located in those states to flee to more competitive alternatives.
“Meanwhile, the Northeast also is becoming increasingly inhospitable for employers. Of the 25 right-to-work states, zero reside in the Northeast—though New Hampshire tried to end forced unionism in 2012. In fact, the rate of job creation from 2002-2012 was three times faster in right-to-work states (6.9 percent versus 1.9 percent); but New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and all the others have refused to budge, thanks to the clout of the unions. Other than taxes, this may be the single greatest factor impeding economic competitiveness in the region.
“As a result of the Northeast’s tax and spend policies, the region struggles to keep jobs and talent. As Connecticut State Senator Joe Markley explained, ‘We are the example of what you get with big government.’ […] It is amazing that over an entire decade, Northeastern states, excluding New Hampshire, experienced just 2.1 percent job growth—less than half the 5.2 percent job growth nationwide. It is no wonder migration out of these states was more than 2.6 million on net over the past 10 years.” [Internal citations omitted.] —Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Jonathan Williams, “Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, 8th Edition,” American Legislative Exchange Council, January 2016
Forrest McDonald, R.I.P. “Forrest McDonald, a presidential and constitutional scholar who challenged liberal shibboleths about early American history and lionized the founding fathers as uniquely intellectual, died on Tuesday in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was 89.
“In ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution’ (1985), which was one of three finalists for the 1986 Pulitzer in history, he pronounced the founding fathers as having been singularly qualified to draft the framework of federalism. He reiterated the point when he delivered the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Jefferson Lecture in Washington in 1987.
“‘To put it bluntly,’ Dr. McDonald said then, ‘it would be impossible in America today to assemble a group of people with anything near the combined experience, learning and wisdom that the 55 authors of the Constitution took with them to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.’” —Sam Roberts, “Forrest McDonald, Historian Who Punctured Liberal Notions, Dies at 89,” New York Times, January 22
The group Oxfam keeps trying to use wealth distribution as an indicator of global economic inequality. Here’s why that doesn’t work: “[T]he claims on global inequality in Oxfam’s report are misleading. Oxfam is using data from Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2015, which calculates wealth based on the present value of all assets minus debts. This methodology of calculating wealth produces some strange results, including:
“10 per cent of the world’s poorest reside in America and around 20 per cent of the world’s poorest reside in Europe, but virtually none of the world’s poorest live in China […] .
A young investment banker with student debts is deemed one of the poorest people in the world. However, a rural farmer in India with minimal savings is considered richer than the young investment banker. […]
“The people in the US and Europe in the bottom of the world’s population – according to the Credit Suisse wealth measure – are simply those with more debts than assets. These will include many students and mortgage holders, who face absolutely no poverty whatsoever. In fact, as Ben Southwood from the Adam Smith Institute points out, having negative wealth may actually be a sign of prosperity, since only people with good financial prospects can secure loans. The debts of these groups will also drag down the overall wealth figure for the bottom 50 per cent of the distribution, making a wealth comparison of this group to the richest in society misleading.” —Daniel Mahoney, “Oxfam’s Claims on Inequality Are Misleading,” CapX, January 18
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