Democracy and the Courts: Alternative Checks on Austerity in Greece

In May 2011, “Athens agreed to impose a new $9 billion round of tax increases and spending cuts and speed up nearly $75 billion in promised privatizations.” In early June, a new round of tightening was being planned by the Greek government. It was feared that those cuts would deepen the recession and thus further shrink the tax base, making it even harder for the government to cut its deficit. Meanwhile, Reuters reported, “Greeks are showing signs of reaching the limits of their endurance as budget cuts imposed under Greece's first bailout a year ago have helped to push unemployment close to 16 percent.” The news service cited police reports of more than 80,000 people packing the main Syntagma square outside parliament on June 6^th—the 12^th consecutive day of protesting there.

                                              Reuters

The full essay is at "Democracy and the Courts: On Austerity."

Taxes and Health Insurance: The United States Diverge Toward a Stronger Union

One of the main benefits of federalism is that it allows for both the tremendous power that can come from member states taking a united stance and cultural and related political interstate diversity. In other words, federalism is not only a means of checking governmental power by means of splitting governmental sovereignty between two systems of government—state and federal—but also a way of giving empires the advantages of both united action and diversity. In the case of the U.S., the power of uniting forces far surpasses the allowance for interstate diversity because consolidation in Congress and the White House has come to eclipse the power of the state governments. Although it is not sufficient to restore a semblance of balance between the two systems of government in the American federal system, it is nonetheless significant that “red” and “blue” states moved in different directions subsequent to the 2010 elections both in terms of tax and health-insurance policy. 

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

Maryland and Kansas: Distinct Taxing and Spending Policy Ideologies

Coming out of the recession that followed the financial crisis of 2008, Maryland “raised income taxes on its top earners . . . to preserve services and spending on its well-regarded schools — leading some business groups to warn that the state might become less competitive. Kansas, controlled by Republicans, decided to try to spur its economy with an income tax cut — which Moody’s Investors Service, the ratings agency, recently warned would lead to “dramatic revenue loss” and deficits that will likely require more spending cuts in the coming years.” Two very different political societies in one Union. This might sound familiar to Europeans looking at their own Union. Yes, Virginia, the E.U. and U.S. are indeed commensurate. 

The full essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.