Notes for Monday 28, 2020

Taxes and Lids

Sep 28, 2020

Ilya Shapiro on Supreme Disorder on Matt Lewis and the News

This is an excellent review of the history of Supreme Court nominations.

Cass Sunstein on Smarter Regulations, and Less Conformity

Sunstein is an interesting libertarian thinker that tries to mitigate regulation through behavioral economics. Subscribe to Heaton's podcast while you're there.

"Cass Sunstein gained international notoriety for his book "Nudge," about habits and choice architecture. He then worked as the regulatory czar for the Obama administration--the regulator who regulates regulations. His latest book is "Conformity: The Power of Social Influences." He joins Heaton to discuss how behavioral economics can shape smart policy without limiting individual freedom, and how conformity makes groups collectively dumber."

Trump's Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance

The tax returns are a big nothing burger. All that energy expended for five years to learn that Trump does what other rich people do. This is a great example of the need for a simplified tax code through the flat tax or fair tax.

This is a common theme of the Trump Presidency: The claim that he's's uniquely corrupt when the average person is just seeing the system for the first time.

The conflicts of interest and the massive debt payments coming due should have been the lede. Trump is on the verge of financial ruin. He needs the Federal Government to keep paying for rooms. So there’s no doubt that he’s going to fight to stay in office. It delays the investigations and back payments to the IRS for four more years.

Sarah Blaskey and Nicholas Nehamas on The Grifters Club

I will say this to those cheering Trump for avoiding taxes: A voluntary society requires trust. Always rooting for or excusing people that operate in the gray areas of the law serves to reinforce skepticism about libertarian solutions. It's not the winning message outside of the movement that some might believe it is.

Further context: 18 Revelations From a Trove of Trump Tax Records

Ryan Ellis @RyanLEllis

What should people think about the @nytimes Trump tax story? A thread. 1/

nytimes.comTrump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax AvoidanceThe Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Eric Boehm @EricBoehm87

Wow if only there was some way Trump could have prevented this from happening by, I don't know, releasing his tax returns at any point in the last FOUR AND A HALF YEARS

Dave Smith @ComicDaveSmith

I’m sure it’s completely coincidental that the NYT report about Trump’s taxes comes 48hrs before the first debate.

We Are Libertarians @werlibertarians

Trump is a hero to many libertarians because they view "liberty" as a framework to do whatever they want without consequences or consideration of how their choices affect others. To attack Trump is to attack their real ideology.

Michael Malice @michaelmalice

The income tax is a fine on productive work

Libertarian AF:

Jeet Heer @HeerJeet

In 2016, Trump paid $129,250 more to Stormy Daniels than to the USA government.

The Lid

Ellen Carmichael @ellencarmichael

So far, Biden has called an early morning lid 43% of the days in September. The Biden campaign is also not doing any rallies, has very few media avails and does no door-knocking.

This is seen as some evidence of Joe Biden being extra sleepy, but my gut says it is strategy. Trump did something similar in 2016 after the Hollywood Access tapes. In October, he read from the teleprompter, and Bannon and Conway told him to keep his trap shut. They realized something the new campaign team has forgotten: Silence is an option.

The candidate dominating the news cycle will lose the race. Get out of the way and let Trump be the story. There are far more controversies around him now than four years ago.
The debates are more important than anything else in the race. Presidents often do poorly in the first debate because no one pushes on them while their opponent has spent the spring in primary debates. Trump is reportedly not preparing for these debates, and he can land a knock-out punch if he performs well. Biden is likely prepping for them.
The voters that Biden would touch (haha) don't want strangers at their door. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to understand that liberals are more fearful of the pandemic.