Ronald Reagan Days

I am using two of our mandatory class cancellations on February 16 and 18 to celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday!

Just kidding. His birthday is actually on February 6, but I have some family obligations next Wednesday and Friday, so our only class next week will be on Thursday February 17.

Tiny NYC Apartment at $1750 per month

Just for fun!

Here is a link to a NYT piece on how to live large in the big city in 200 square feet. Here is an excerpt:

The fourth-floor apartment, for which she pays $1,750 a month, consists of a single room, just over 200 square feet, with a bed, a desk, a dining table and a couple of swivel chairs.

$1.8 Million Fee for Pro Bono Case

link

Although some critics object to "pro bono" lawyers recovering fees, remember the representation is always free to the client; it is the governmental defendant who is liable for fees if, and only if, it has abused the constitutional rights of the plaintiff. The fees are awarded as a disincentive to governmental lawlessness.

Taxes and Redistribution of Wealth

It is possible to view taxes as a kind of taking. This is particularly true when the tax code is designed to "spread the wealth" (i.e. to take income from some for the purpose of wealth transfer or "social justice"). Here is an interesting post from the blogosphere:

Interesting data from the Tax Prof blog:

Top 1% Pay More Income Tax Than Bottom 90%

The Tax Foundation has published Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data:

New data released by the IRS today offers interesting insights into the distributional spread of the federal income tax burden, new analysis by the Tax Foundation shows. The new data shows that the top-earning 25% of taxpayers (AGI over $62,068) earned 67.5% of the nation's income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (86%). The top 1% of taxpayers (AGI over $364,657) earned approximately 21.2% of the nation's income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.4% of all federal income taxes. That means the top 1% of tax returns paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95% of tax returns.

The recent notion of an income tax "cut" for people who pay no income taxes is perhaps the clearest example of tax laws that literally take from Citizen A and give to Citizen B.

Perhaps this is what Ben Franklin warned us against when he said:"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

Should the Takings Clause of the Constitution be interpreted to provide some limits on the power of government to use tax laws to "take" wealth from some classes of taxpayers in order to transfer that wealth to others?