After the violence unleashed at the polls by the Spanish national government, many in Europe are holding their collective breath waiting for Catalonia to declare independence.  As we reflect on this crisis in Spain, we would do well to recall just who made all this trouble: the judiciary.  The legislature of Catalonia and the Spanish parliament had come to a peaceful agreement.  In 2010,  after 4 years of deliberation, Spain’s Constitutional Court struck many provisions of this legislative agreement.  Verfassungsblog has a good commentary on this decision.  The court’s action sparked the call for a vote on independence in which 90 percent of those going to the polls voted for secession.  Now we are waiting to see if Catalonia issues a declaration of independence and attempts to set itself up as an independent nation.  There is great concern that the Spanish central government will send in troops to prohibit this from happening.

A good lesson to be learned from this crisis is that the courts, when possible, should defer to decisions of the elected branches of government when they have successfully mediated a settlement on a controversial issue.  But for the judiciary’s actions in this case, there would have been no independence vote or the saber rattling that is coming from Madrid.

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William J. Watkins, Jr. is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and the author of the book, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution.

One of the best-known quotations from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776) defines natural liberty: “Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man.”

Smith inserted the condition “so long as he does not violate the laws of justice” ahead of the directive because it was central to his conception of liberty.  What everyone remembers is “free to pursue his own interest,” with the last often turned into “self-interest.”  But Smith’s conception of human sociality and economy—I like the word “humanomics”—was far deeper than modern utilitarianism.

What did Smith mean by justice, and why is it so important for understanding his message? The carefully articulated answer was in his first book: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759, pp. 78-91).

Justice for Smith was the negative of his proposition on injustice, which stated that improperly motivated (that is, intentionally) hurtful actions alone deserve punishment because they are the objects of a widely shared sense of resentment.

In another post, Randall Holcombe rightly notes the pressing need for tax reform. Holcombe argues that Trump’s proposed tax reform is “an improvement over the current system.”

That may be true; time will tell. Yet, today my news feed reports nonchalantly that the Republican Congress passed a budget in excess of $4 trillion. That is $12,693 per capita. Stated differently, the federal government spends $50,000 for every four Americans. Picture a family of four for comparison’s sake. Where is the spending reform?

That doesn’t get to the real cost of government, which also includes local and state spending amounting to another $3 trillion. Total: $7 trillion or $21,700 per capita. In excess of $86,000 for every four Americans. Find three friends and start paying!

It’s a mark of our age that the high cost of government no longer elicits outrage or comment. The two major political parties bicker about social and cultural issues, thus distracting us from the bipartisan willingness to extract wealth from Americans.

The Reagan Revolution (or the “Republican Revolution” of 1994) is long dead.  What remains is the shell game of shifting costs from one group or another through “tax reform.”

Federal tax reform is one way to conceal the costs of government by focusing public attention on only one aspect of taxation (ignoring state, local, property, sales, corporate and other taxes). Even then, the true cost of government to an individual is obscured by the complexity of money transfers.

Back in the 1970s, economist James Buchanan emphasized the problem of “fiscal illusion.” Government spending was (is) out of control, in part, because of “the failure of citizens to estimate properly the true tax costs” of spending programs. “These costs are underestimated, sometimes by a factor of two-thirds. The people who pay taxes do not realize how much they pay. . . .”

Radical tax reform would make the “true tax costs” of government evident to the ordinary person, instead of concealing it by layers of taxation.

That is the type of reform we need.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the current political class to deliver it.

In response to the senseless violence in Las Vegas, several on the Left have brazenly indicated what they truly think about middle America–folks that go to work, worship on Sundays, listen to country music, drive pick ups, and simply try to build an honest life with family.

Hayley Geftman-Gold, one of CBS’s top lawyers, went on Facebook and offered her honest assessment of the shooting:

 If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered [likely a reference to Sandy Hook] I have no hope that Repugs will ever do the right thing, I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans often are Republican gun toters.

Red-State America is repugnant (“Repugs”), a collection of “deplorables” as Hillary Clinton described them before the 2016 election, and deserve to be gunned down by a madman.  Of course, the Ivy-educated lawyer and NYC resident quickly apologized once the heat was on, but can anyone doubt that her initial opinions represent that of a substantial number of people living in the “bubble”?  Look at the first post right below her original one and see the affirmation from her bubble friends.

Or what about Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University? His response to the tragedy was to proclaim that “Trumpism” and “white victimization” motivated the shooter.  He further opined that “white people and men” engage is this type of conduct “when they don’t get what they want.”  Tenure and academic freedom have saved him from having to back peddle like Geftman-Gold.  After all, this is the same guy who said that all he wanted for Christmas was a “white genocide.”  Lovely.  But this is the kind of nonsense that passes for academic scholarship today and is being poured into the minds of young people.

The shooting in Las Vegas was a terrible event.  The ugly response of the Leftist mind should give us pause as we see how they view a large segment of fellow citizens.

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William J. Watkins, Jr. is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and the author of the book, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution.

Last year I put up a blog post on the Black Lives Matter movement, saying that the movement had a valid complaint about the excessive and too often fatal use of force against unarmed and too often innocent blacks.  I believe I received more comments on that post, both positive and negative, both on this website and through private correspondence, than on any other of my posts.

A year later, I still agree with the BLM argument that excessive force has been used against blacks partly because of their race.  The BLM movement has probably done some good by publicly airing the issue, and likely has restrained some law enforcement officers who otherwise might have been overzealous in their actions.

My perception is that their arguments about overzealous police actions against blacks is correct, partly because in the internet age I’ve seen videos that appear to confirm it.  I also think the argument has the moral high ground in arguing against abuse of government power.  And, I think their complaints about excessive use of force by the police is powerful enough to gain sympathy from everyone, regardless of race.

The tax reform proposal offered last week by President Trump and Republicans in Congress would be an improvement over the current system, but more so for corporate income taxes than for individual income taxes.  It appears that the biggest advantage the proposal offers individual taxpayers is a simplified tax structure, whereas significant cuts are in the works for corporate taxes.

Individual Income Taxes  The proposal reduces tax brackets from seven to three: 12%, 25%, and 35%.  The degree to which this might represent a tax cut remains to be seen, because the proposal does not say at what income levels those brackets would be effective.  The standard deduction would almost double, meaning that those at the bottom end of the income distribution would surely enjoy a reduction in income taxes.

The proposal would broaden the tax base by eliminating many deductions and credits.  The home mortgage interest deduction and deduction for charitable contributions would be retained, but deductions for payments of state and local taxes are eliminated.  This deduction favored taxpayers in high-tax states, and effectively provides a subsidy to high-tax states financed by taxpayers in low-tax states.

In Spain, the central government resorted to violence to stop the people of Catalonia from participating in a vote on independence.  The violence from agents of the national government is distressing.  According to The Telegraph:

Video footage showed officers from Spain’s national police—4,000 of whom had been brought in by the government to help quash the ballot—fighting with elderly voters, some of whom were left bleeding, and dragging young women away from polling stations by their hair.

Spanish officials shrugged off the violence and candidly stated that a few cracked heads were necessary to maintain the full authority of the central government.  According to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy: “We did what we had to do” to thwart the “premeditated attack on the legality of the Spanish state.”  Mr. Rajoy has described the referendum as a “coup” and refused to accept the right of the people of Catalonia to chart their own destiny and choose whether to be an independent nation or remain under the thumb of Madrid.  Mr. Rajoy’s actions and sentiments are similar to those of General Francisco Franco who attempted to destroy Catalan separatism and killed 3,500 people when he took control of the region in 1938.

Catalonia has its own language, laws, and customs.  It is a fairly wealthy region that Madrid plunders to keep itself afloat.

According to The Guardian:

90% of the 2.26 million Catalans who voted on Sunday voted in favour of independence, according to preliminary results released by the region’s government. The region has 5.3 million voters. Officials said 770,000 votes were lost due to disruption which resulted in polling stations being raided by Spanish police.

Overwhelmingly, the people want independence.  It is disappointing that Madrid will not listen to their voices and allow the region to go its own way.  This reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s use of federal troops to stop the Maryland legislature from deliberating on the issue of secession.

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William J. Watkins, Jr. is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and the author of the book, Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution.

In a little-known 2006 World Bank report Where Is the Wealth of Nations? a team of economists provide a snapshot of wealth in 120 countries, and they find that governance is key. A full 46 percent of total wealth in high-income countries derives from the rule of law, the most important factor. This is an extraordinary finding with sweeping implications.

The economists divide each country’s capital stock into three categories: (1) natural capital (patureland, subsoil assets, timber, non-timber forest resources, protected areas, and cropland); (2) produced capital (buildings, machinery, equipment, and infrastructure); and (3) intangible capital (raw labor, human capital, social capital, and quality of institutions). These are the range of assets upon which development depends and from which income and saving flows.

[This article was co-authored with David Paton and David Blake, and first appeared on TheConversation.com.]

The benefits of free trade have been familiar to economists since Adam Smith. Trade encourages specialisation and leads to lower costs, higher productivity and higher living standards.

Yet for some economists, things are different when it comes to the UK leaving the EU’s customs union and single market. The customs union was built on the German Zollverein model of protecting domestic industries from foreign competition around the time of German unification 150 years ago. Today, free trade is promoted within the EU, which is good. But the customs union imposes barriers to trade with the rest of the world, which is not.

The single market also imposes a hugely burdensome regulatory edifice on economic activity within the EU. Brexit will give the UK the opportunity to pursue its own free trade policy with the rest of the world and to escape the needless regulatory burdens of the single market.

Too many economists have refused to take seriously the idea that Brexit has the potential to provide economic benefits to the UK. Before the referendum, Treasury economists assured the public that a vote to leave would cause “an immediate and profound shock to our economy” leading to recession and a large increase in unemployment.

These are predictions that have since proved to be very wide of the mark. Modelling by the LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) predicted that leaving the EU could only have negative consequences for the UK economy.

The consensus is misleading

My report A Trade Policy for a Brexited Britain, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs last month, had a short section on EU tariffs. I gave the example of how in October last year EU tariffs on orange imports were quintupled from 3.2 percent to 16 percent. This example has been challenged by some on the Remain side, who have suggested that I got my facts wrong.

In fact, the source was Dan Lewis, a leading authority on EU tariffs, who wrote on precisely that subject on BrexitCentral last November: “New 16% import tariffs on oranges show why we must leave the Customs Union”. This example illustrates classic EU tariff policy in action. A bunch of producers elsewhere in the EU—in this case Spain—complained about competition from South African orange exporters and lobbied to increase tariffs. They got their way and the net result as it affected the UK was to increase the cost of orange imports to the UK. Lewis also provided some links (here and here) to the Spanish producers’ lobbying efforts and to one of the tariff schedules on his database.