Epstein re-floats the flat tax:
‘The key challenge in the formation of a union among jealous states is to give them confidence that their taxes will similarly be spent on collective goods, and not on transfer payments that subject one faction to expropriation by another. To be sure, there are always some difficult cases, but these are not sufficient to upend the overall system. No one should doubt that the creation of an interstate highway system falls within the conception of general welfare even if the network of local roads does not.’
It’s not that we don’t need the Constitution, it’s that Congress has gotten too far from it, Epstein replies. The libertarian/liberal-progressive divide. There may well be income inequality, and we may well need to spend less and get more tax revenue, but do we spend our way like Keynesians to get there?
Related On This Site: Covering the law and economics from a libertarian perspective: Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution Journal: ‘Three Cheers for Income Inequality’…Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘Death By Wealth Tax’…Richard Epstein At The Hoover Institution: ‘The Obamacare Quaqmire’
Originalism vs. The living constitution: George Will Via The Jewish World Review: ‘True Self-Government’.
Repost-Eugene Volokh At The National Review: ‘Multiculturalism: For or Against?’…Repost-’Kenneth Anderson At Volokh: ‘The Fragmenting of the New Class Elites, Or, Downward Mobility’
The Epstein article is good if you still have faith in constitutionalism. Some of us lost that faith a long time ago.
I’d say I have more faith in it than that. Hopefully it’s just a rough patch.