Here are the highlights of my reading this week.
by Steven Calabresi, The reasonJune 1, 2024.
Quote:
President Donald Trump was indicted yesterday for allegedly altering business records to hide allegations that he paid sex star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 presidential election. However, changing business records under New York State law is only a crime if it is done to cover up a violation of another law. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged that the documents were allegedly altered to conceal a financial contribution in violation of federal campaign finance laws or to win the 2016 election by defrauding voters of information they had a right to know. There is no debate beyond the scrutiny of the first amendment.
by Ilya Somin, The UnPopulistMay 28, 2024.
Sanctuary laws are often equated with “nullification”—the idea that states can make federal laws null and void in their jurisdiction. Emptiness, of course, has a bad reputation because of its association with the protection of slavery and (later) segregation. But there is an important difference between the laws of sanctuary and desolation.
Nullificationists argue that the federal laws in question are completely null and void, and that states have the right to restrict their use in their own jurisdiction. In contrast, sanctuary authorities do not claim that the laws in question are null and void. They simply deny them the help of local and local governments, especially law enforcement agencies. For example, they refuse to help enforce relevant laws themselves, or to provide information to federal law enforcement agencies involved in enforcement efforts. But the feds are always free to try to enforce these laws using only their own resources and personnel.
by Bryan Caplan, Swish with itMay 27, 2024.
Quote:
Do I believe that the US can pull “everything the poor of the world”? It depends on the time horizon. The population of Poland grew by 6% in a few weeks, and it was good. The US population grew by 1339% from 1800-1900, and that, too, was good. There is no reason why the people of today’s US cannot grow faster or faster. Going from 330M today to 1B tomorrow would be catastrophic, but going from 330M today to 1B in 50 years is entirely possible. And because of the diaspora dynamics, it is the latter situation that works most strongly.
Unless, I freely agree, immigrants and their descendants live on welfare until the end of time. Fortunately, this rarely happens under the status quo. And the countries that are close to opening the borders – the monarchies of the Gulf and Singapore – are doing almost the opposite, for obvious reasons: Both intellectuals and conservatives deserve to be accepted, but only as long as they pull their weight.
DRH Comments:
Given Bryan’s statement in the last sentence of the first paragraph above, I don’t see why he’s advocating open borders. If the dynamic factor triples in 50 years, why not advocate limiting immigration to 7 to 8 million per year? Why 7 to 8 million rather than the direct showing, about 13 million? [670 million divided by 50 = 13 million.] Because immigrants have children. And if I’m overly optimistic about the number of children, that’s okay. We will reach, say, 800 million citizens instead of 1 billion.
Let’s take my low estimate of 7 million. If the government sets that price at $50K per immigrant, it will bring in $350 billion a year. If it doesn’t waste that money on other expenditures (which of course is a big “if”), it will come close to reducing future deficits so that government debt as a percentage of GDP actually stays stable or declines slightly. Can anyone take 7 million at $50K each? Definitely. If anyone wants to see it, I will do a special blog post on this issue.
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