Freedom of Religion? from Mandates?

Perhaps the funniest aspect of the challenge to the healthcare mandate is that just last year, the Supreme Court gave short shrift to the Establishment Clause—which protects freedom of religion by enforcing the barrier between church and state—because an Arizona law used a tax to subsidize religious schools rather than a direct subsidy. Let's hope the Court remains willing to ignore threats to liberty (then government subsidizing religious education; now the mandate) whenever lawmakers call the threat a tax! Sadly, it may be that tax expenditure analysis applies only to policies supported by the left…

Mandates vs Incentives

What's the difference between a mandate and a tax incentive?  Nothing but rhetoric.  Martin Sullivan created this table:

He says

The only difference between the mandate and your common tax incentive is that Congress framed the incentive as a tax penalty instead of a tax break. I recognize there might be a legal difference between the two approaches that is beyond my comprehension. But the Court, Congress, and the public should understand that economically the two approaches are exactly the same. Any tax penalty can easily be redesigned as a tax incentive. So, for example, a $1,000 tax penalty for not doing X could be replaced by a tax policy whereby all individuals' taxes are raised by $1,000 and then they are given a tax credit of $1,000 for doing X.

Catherine Rampell picked this up and likes the idea that if ACA is unconstitutional, then all tax incentives might be unconstitutional too--

It seems unlikely that the entire tax incentive system would crumble should the mandate be struck down. That would go a long way toward simplifying the tax code, though, and probably help curb lobbying, too.

Of course, there is no curbing lobbying.  There is always another way to frame one's goals.

Want to move to IKEAland?

Maybe not quite as exciting as Sealand, but with infinitely better street names, one can only imagine.  Marginal Revolution links to this globe & mail article about IKEA's designs on designing urban living:

The people who run the Swedish home-furnishings behemoth are launching a bold push into the business of designing, building and operating entire urban neighbourhoods. Where once they placed a couch in a living room, the Swedes now want to place you and 6,000 neighbours into a neglected corner of your city, design an entire urban world around you, and Ikea-ize your lives. Their bold, high-concept notion of an urban 'hood could be an important solution to the housing-supply shortages that plague many large cities – but it could take some getting used to.

...It is a far more appealing design than most of the centrally-planned urban neighbourhoods that have blighted British cities for the last 60 years, and it promises the sort of pleasant population density – on a piece of wasteland that had once been considered uninhabitable – that could help Britain’s dire housing shortages.

The Ikea people promise that this will not be an Ikea...so, maybe no creative street names after all.  If not, the appeal seems considerably diminished.  It could be a premium to have an address on Fågleboda Drive,  or to take Förhöja Böülevård to the Förträfflig Öffice.

The homes will all be rentals, since this is an income-producing project for Ikea: “We don’t like to sell income-generating assets.”  But Ikea would like to stress that this will prevent speculation-driven boom and bust cycles, thus preserving affordability.  Check out the controls Ikea will exert:

“We’d have a very good understanding of rubbish collection, of cleanliness, of landscape management,” Mr. Cobden says. “We would have a fairly firm line on undesirable activity, whatever that may be. But we also feel we can say, okay, because we’ve kept control of the management of the commercial facilities, we have a fairly strong hand in what is said in terms of the activities that are held on site.”

Now it starts to sound like a gated community in Florida...not anything near as exciting as Sealand.  Instead of expanding into consumer credit, Ikea's just expanding into rental properties.

That's a Fryken shame.

What is FATCA not as bad as?

FATCA seems unobtrusive compared to this:

One million British travellers planning to fly to Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico this year face the risk of being turned away at the airport – at the insistence of the US Department of Homeland Security.

...Now the US is demanding passengers' full names, dates of birth and gender from airlines, at least 72 hour[s] before departure from the UK to Canada. The initial requirement is for flights to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and the Nova Scotia capital, Halifax – 150 miles from the nearest US territory. A similar stipulation is expected soon for the main airports in western Canada, Vancouver and Calgary.

Any passenger who refuses to comply will be denied boarding. Those who do supply details may find their trip could be abruptly cancelled by the Department of Homeland Security, which says it will "[m]ake boarding pass determinations up until the time a flight leaves the gate ... If a passenger successfully obtains a boarding pass, his/her name is not on the No Fly list." In other words, travellers cannot find out whether they will be accepted on board until they reach the airport.

Any objections?

 

Kickstarter Links

What works in development?  I'm pledging to find out, how about you?

How about pledging money to impact a documentary on how money impacts politics?

Too late: an illustrated guide to Income in the U.S., but it's already funded.

The simple math that can save cities

It's about density and using downtown spaces in a Jane Jacobs kind of way.  You want this:

and not this:

That's the same building; consider which it would be more exciting to move into or next to.  The author talks about Joe Minicozzi, director at real-estate developer Public Interest Projects, "who has now made something of a traveling road show with these photos":

We tend to think that broke cities have two options: raise taxes, or cut services. Minicozzi, though, is trying to point to the basic but long-buried math of our tax system that cities should be exploiting instead: Per-acre, our downtowns have the potential to generate so much more public wealth than low-density subdivisions or massive malls by the highway. And for all that revenue they bring in, downtowns cost considerably less to maintain in public services and infrastructure.

Related old: Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities
Related new:  Edward Glaeser, Triumph of the City

links

An interesting discussion on the nature of public goods and the need for the state to provide them on behalf of the public.

a protest on a pasty tax.

austerity's social impact is scary.

austerity's economic impact is scary.