Why are air traffic control and airport security federal responsibilities? That's a question raised by the government shutdown, writes David Ditch:
The Department of Transportation's air traffic control system and the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration are both caught up in the shutdown due to spending bills for their respective departments not yet having been signed into law.
As a result, many travelers are facing longer security lines, and air traffic control employees are voicing complaints about having to work without pay.
While most shutdown discussion revolves around casting blame and creative ways to prevent shutdowns from taking place, Americans should instead consider whether the federal government should be responsible for so many aspects of day-to-day life.
In the case of air traffic control, Americans are shortchanged by a system that is bureaucratic and wildly out of date. This has meant higher costs and less functionality for airlines, which in turn leads to higher prices and more delays for passengers.
A positive example lies to the north. Canada's air traffic control system, which covers a similarly large amount of territory, was turned over to a private nonprofit in 1996. The result has been lower costs and faster technological development. [...]
In a similar vein, the TSA's airport screening work does not need to be performed by federal employees.
It's understandable that changes were made in an attempt to increase airport security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But private-sector screeners can handle the task of seeking to prevent weapons and explosives from being brought on board airplanes just as well as unionized federal employees.
Private providers have better incentives and stronger accountability, making them preferable to government providers in most cases. Handing over some tasks to private providers would allow the TSA to focus on regulation and oversight, rather than implementation.
[David Ditch, "Best Way to Protect Air Travel from the Shutdown: Reduce Washington's Role," The Daily Signal, January 18]
If government did less, then there would be less disruption from a government shutdown. Chris Edwards writes:
The shutdown is affecting activities that the government needlessly monopolizes—such as air traffic control. It is affecting activities that the government needlessly regulates and subsidizes—from Smuttynose's beer labels in New Hampshire to Betty Gay's home repairs in Kentucky.
And it is needlessly harming a large group of people that it has micromanaged for far too long—American Indians. "The shutdown has hit Native American tribes especially hard because so many of their basic services depend on federal funding," notes the Washington Post. Education, health care, road maintenance, and other services on reservations are often run by the federal government or run by tribal employees paid by the federal government.
That dependency has long resulted in mismanaged and low-quality services for the million people who live on reservations. In the New York Times, one tribal leader spoke of federal support, "The federal government owes us this: We prepaid with millions of acres of land," while another said the shutdown "adversely affects a population that is already adversely affected by the United States government."
I agree with those views. In the long run, subsidies are not a good way to generate prosperity, but they are needed until Congress tackles basic problems of property rights and legal institutions on reservations that stymie growth.
In the meantime, funding should be converted to block grants to the tribes or vouchers to individuals on reservations. Tribes and individuals would use the benefits to contract for services such as schooling and health care from private firms or nearby local governments. That would further the goal of Indian self-determination and ensure that reservation life doesn't get caught in the political crossfire.
[Chris Edwards, "Government Octopus Threatens the Economy," Cato Institute, January 14]
Who will investigate the politicization of the FBI? The Federal Bureau of Investigation, reported the New York Times this week, investigated whether President Trump is a threat to national security. That, writes Rich Lowry, is not how our political system is supposed to work:
As part of the executive branch, the FBI should brush up on the powers of the chief executive. The president gets to fire subordinate executive-branch officials. He gets to meet with and talk to foreign leaders. He gets to make policy toward foreign nations. Especially important to the current investigation, he gets to say foolish, ill-informed, and destructive things.
If the president wants to tilt toward Russia (not that Trump really has, except in his words), he can. If he wants to butter up China's dictatorial president during high-stakes trade negotiations, he can. If he wants to announce a precipitous withdrawal from Syria and make it slightly less precipitous in a fog of confusion, he can.
And the FBI should have nothing to say about it.
The Times story is another sign that we have forgotten the role of our respective branches of government. It is Congress that exists to check and investigate the president, not the FBI. Congress can inveigh against his foreign policy and constrain his options. It can build a case for not reelecting him and perhaps impeach him. These are all actions to be undertaken out in the open by politically accountable players, so the public can make informed judgments about them.
[Rich Lowry, "The FBI Tramples Our Political Order," National Review, January 15]
In the 1950s, effective average federal taxes were only 17 percent. Milton Ezrati weighs in on the arguments for a 70 percent top tax rate to fund a "Green New Deal":
[Paul] Krugman and [Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez] play fast and loose when it comes to the country's prosperity under high tax rates. It's true that the United States prospered with a top rate of 70 percent and higher in the mid-twentieth century. But the tax code then included loopholes that drastically reduced the amount of income subject to those rates. All the tax cuts since then have closed those loopholes. One can forgive Ocasio-Cortez for missing the difference, as she has consistently shown economic and historical ignorance, but Krugman should know better.
In the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, for instance, when the 70 percent maximum rate prevailed, taxpayers could write off all state and local taxes, with no limit—including sales taxes, licensing fees, property taxes, and income taxes. They could also write off all interest expenses without limit—on their mortgages (no matter how many), all credit-card debt, auto loans, or home-improvement loans. Imagine the benefits to a plutocrat, buying a third home or a fifth Bentley.
His tax would be calculated on net income, reduced by any fees, sales, or transfer tax, as well as all the interest expenses on the mortgages or auto loans over the years. The code included dividend exclusions and generous provisions for capital-gains preferences. Taxpayers back then could shelter unlimited amounts in IRAs. Social Security payouts were tax-free, no matter how high a person's income. Individuals could write down their taxable income through averaging provisions and transfer as much income as they liked to their children, who paid at lower rates. There was no limit to rental-loss deduction. Business losses counted against all income.
Given these breaks and loopholes, it's no surprise that few people actually paid those high rates on much of their income. The nonprofit Tax Foundation estimates that in the 1950s, for instance, when the top statutory rate was 92 percent, the top 1 percent of taxpayers wrote off so much income that their effective average federal tax rate was about 17 percent. If our highest earners today were offered the 2019 code or the old one, they might well go for the old rules, even at a 92 percent top rate.
[Milton Ezrati, "The 'Green New Deal' Is a Fiscal Fantasy," City Journal, January 14]
Can states engage in protectionism in liquor retailing? The Supreme Court appears skeptical of a Tennessee law requiring 10 years of residency in order to renew a liquor license. Jacob Sullum reports on the oral arguments in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Association v. Blair:
When it comes to alcohol, Dvoretzky and Franklin said, the ordinary "dormant Commerce Clause" analysis, which frowns on economic regulations that discriminate against people from other states, does not apply at all. That means courts should uphold a discriminatory alcohol regulation even when its defenders forthrightly admit that it serves no purpose other than shielding entrenched interests like the merchants represented by the TWRSA from competition.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh pushed back on this reading of the 21st Amendment, the relevant provision of which says "the transportation or importation into any State...for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited." On its face, Tennessee's 12-year residency requirement for retailers has nothing to do with importing prohibited liquor into the state. "When you say 'virtually complete authority,'" Kavanaugh said, "the text of the 21st Amendment does not support that, as I read it....It's talking about the transportation or importation into any state. And why isn't that most naturally read to allow states to remain dry and, therefore, ban transportation or importation, but not to otherwise impose discriminatory or...protectionist regulations?"
Justice Samuel Alito was similarly skeptical. "The 21st Amendment is about the transportation or importation of alcohol into a state," he told Dvoretzky. "How do you get from there to a durational residency requirement that is imposed on the owner of a retail outlet in the state?"
The Supreme Court has already said the 21st Amendment is not a free pass for alcohol-related protectionism. In Bacchus v. Dias (1984), the Court rejected an excise tax exemption designed to favor local distillers in Hawaii over out-of-state competitors, and in Granholm v. Heald (2005) it said Michigan and New York could not constitutionally prohibit out-of-state wineries from shipping their
products directly to consumers while allowing in-state wineries to do so. The TWRSA wants the justices to read those precedents as applying only to discrimination against manufacturers.
"I know you want to limit it to producers," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to Dvoretzky, "but that's not the way that Granholm talked about...this issue." She also noted that if the Commerce Clause has no relevance in cases involving state alcohol regulation, as Dvoretzky maintained, Bacchus and Granholm must have been wrongly decided.
[Jacob Sullum, "Is the 21st Amendment a Free Pass for Liquor Protectionism?" Reason, January 18]
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