The Constitution's prohibition against excessive fines now applies to the states. John Kramer writes:
In an historic ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment protects Americans not just against the federal government, but against states and local authorities too. No matter which state you live in, every level of government must now abide by the federal Constitution's guarantee that property owners will be safe from excessive fines and forfeitures. "[T]he historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Court, "is overwhelming."
Indiana resident Tyson Timbs is at the center of this legal fight. His road to the U.S. Supreme Court began shortly after his father died, when he received more than $70,000 in life-insurance proceeds and bought a new car. For years, Tyson had struggled with drug addiction; a painkiller prescription had escalated to heroin abuse. Soon after buying his new car, Tyson sold four grams of heroin to fund his addiction. The purchasers were undercover officers, and police arrested Tyson. They seized his car too.
Tyson pleaded guilty to one count of drug dealing, which led to house arrest, then probation, and $1,200 in related fees. Most importantly, the arrest was a wake-up call for Tyson. He got his life back on track, holding down a job and taking steps to battle his addiction.
The State of Indiana was more interested in Tyson's car, a Land Rover worth $40,000.
Within months of Tyson's arrest, the state filed a "civil forfeiture" lawsuit to take title to the Land Rover. But the trial court ruled against the government. Because taking Tyson's car would be "grossly disproportional" to his offense—for which Tyson had already been punished—the trial court held that the forfeiture would violate the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The Indiana Court of Appeals agreed.
Then the Indiana Supreme Court stepped in. Breaking with at least 14 other state high courts, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment provides no protection at all against fines and forfeitures imposed by the states. Until the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, the Indiana Supreme Court said, "we will not impose federal obligations on the State that the federal government itself has not mandated."
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court removed any doubt that the Excessive Fines Clause applies fully to Indiana and every other state.
[John Kramer, "U.S. Supreme Court Rules Unanimously That States Cannot Impose Excessive Fines," Institute for Justice, February 20]
Childcare for all? Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed to a new plan for universal childcare, about which Aparna Mathur, Abby McCloskey, and Angela Rachidi write:
First, just because something is expensive does not mean the government should subsidize it for everyone. Support should be targeted to families for whom the cost prohibits working or directly results in compromised quality of care. The more income-targeted the approach, the fewer unintended consequences that result and the less support to families that can pay for child care on their own.
Second, and ironically, government efforts to address affordability would likely increase the costs of child care even further. As the economist Jeffrey Dorfman writes, "when government provides payments for anything, the cost of that good or service always rises." This is because costs become distorted when providers have no incentive to increase productivity and compete for business. And increased costs do not always mean higher-quality care. Parents are less likely to hold providers accountable for quality when they pay little for it.
Third, it is important to remember that we are not starting from scratch when it comes to helping families with child-care expenses. The proposal layers on top of the existing system of tax credits and block grants to states.
[Aparna Mathur, Abby McCloskey, and Angela Rachidi, "Universal Child Care Is the Wrong Approach," American Enterprise Institute, February 22]
Will universal child care become universal pre-school? That's an even worse idea, writes Lindsey Burke writes:
Although the Warren plan talks about day care subsidies rather than "preschool" subsidies, the reference to "curriculum standards" suggests the effort will be about more than child care for parents.
Warren's plan reportedly calls for "requiring child care providers that receive federal funds [to] meet standards similar to those that now apply to Head Start."
Well, Head Start is far from a success story when it comes to participant outcomes.
The Department of Health and Human Services released the scientifically rigorous Head Start Impact Study in 2012, which tracked 5,000 3- and 4-year-old children through the end of third grade. The results? Head Start had little to no impact on the parenting practices or the cognitive, social-emotional, and health outcomes of participants. Notably, on a few measures, access to Head Start had harmful effects on participating children.
Taxpayers have spent nearly $200 billion on Head Start since its inception in 1965. Yet, as the federal evaluation found, by the time the children finished third grade, there was no difference between those who attended Head Start and the control group of their peers who did not.
At the state level, proponents of government-funded early education and care programs have long held up Tennessee's Voluntary Pre-K program as a model state-based preschool program. They note the fact that the child-adult ratio is limited to 10-to-1, teachers must be licensed, and a structured "age appropriate" curriculum must be used in classrooms.
But a randomized control trial evaluation conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University reported no significant differences between the control group and the preschool group on any achievement measures by the end of kindergarten.
[Lindsey Burke, "Federal Early Childhood Education, Care Don't Benefit Kids. Here Are the Facts." The Daily Signal, February 19]
Is your car a national security risk? Veronique de Rugy writes:
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives the president unilateral authority to impose tariffs or quotas on imports that "threaten to impair" U.S. national security. In a still-undisclosed-to-the-public report sent to the administration on Sunday, many suspect that Commerce contends imported foreign cars and parts represent just such a threat. If that's the case, it would give the president power to impose restrictions on them, such as a 25 percent tariff. He has up to 90 days to announce his decision and another 180 days to negotiate remedies with trade partners.
If Trump imposes these trade restrictions, it will make producing and purchasing every single new automobile in America more expensive. Yes, I mean all automobiles, not just imports. That's because, while car brands can be national (e.g., Toyota is Japanese, Mini is German, Ford is American), in reality they are global automakers using global sources for their parts.
Many "foreign" automakers produce and assemble cars in the United States and then export them to the rest of the world. The same is true for "American" automakers who have both domestic and international locations from which they produce for export and domestic consumption. No automobile is made with 100 percent of its parts from one county. For instance, Tesla—which is unique in that it produces all of its vehicles in the United States—imports half of the parts it uses.
Looking at the percentage of each vehicle's parts and manufacturing that comes from either the United States or Canada as tracked by U.S. regulators, CNN Money reported that "the two most 'American' cars are both Hondas—the Odyssey minivan and Ridgeline pickup. Three-quarters of each vehicle's components are made in the United States or Canada."
In other words, no automakers—not even G.M. or Ford—will be safe from these tariffs. All manufacturers will suffer rising costs, much of which will be shifted onto consumers via higher prices.
A new study from the Center for Automotive Research estimates that import restrictions would increase new-car prices by $455 to $6,875, depending on the approach the administration takes. These higher prices would reduce annual consumer demand by 493,600 to 2 million vehicles. But that's before other countries retaliate with their own tariffs and quotas.
[Veronique de Rugy, "Trump's Tariffs May Classify Imported Cars as National Security Risks," Reason, February 21]
The Congressional Budget Office was wrong about the mandate—by about 460 percent. Philip Klein reports:
CBO estimates about the importance of an individual mandate to a national healthcare scheme prodded President Barack Obama into including the unpopular provision into the law in the first place. The mandate projections also played a key role in President Trump's two major legislative initiatives. The fact that the CBO assumed 14 million could lose coverage mainly due to the elimination of mandate penalties helped kill the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, while its later assumption that 13 million fewer insured individuals would mean less spending on subsidies from the federal government helped get the 2017 Republican tax cut across the finish line by improving the budgetary math. Yet those incredibly influential estimates now appear to have been wildly off.
In what was literally a footnote in its annual report on national health spending projections, actuaries for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Wednesday estimated that the elimination of the individual mandate would have a significantly smaller impact than the CBO has long estimated. Specifically, the CMS report revealed that 2.5 million more people would go without insurance in 2019 due to the repeal of the individual mandate's penalties, and the impact would be "smaller" thereafter.
[Philip Klein, "Government Report Reveals CBO Was Scandalously Off in Obamacare Estimates," Washington Examiner, February 20]
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