Cato Daily Dispatch for October 12, 2005
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Targeting Tax BreaksNYC Subway Tip a "Hoax"
Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense
Targeting Tax Breaks
"A presidential advisory panel agreed that changes in the federal income tax should limit popular tax breaks for both homeownership and employer-provided health insurance," The Washington Post reports.
"The decisions, made in a preliminary fashion yesterday by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, are likely to be opposed by the housing industry and other business interests."
In the Policy Analysis "Options for Tax Reform," Cato's director of tax policy studies Chris Edwards examines reform options including a flat tax, a national retail sales tax, and a savings-exempt tax. Edwards proposes a new option, a "dual-rate income tax," a revenue-neutral option that would convert the individual income tax to a two-rate system that eliminates most deductions and credits and allows nearly all families to pay tax at a low 15 percent rate.
"The dual-rate tax plan would retain the standard deduction, an expanded personal exemption, and the earned income tax credit," Edwards writes. "The plan would create a simpler and more efficient tax code within the structure of today's system and may be just the type of tax plan that the president's advisory panel is looking for."
NYC Subway Tip a "Hoax"
"The information from an Iraqi tipster that prompted New York City to go on high alert for a possible terrorist bombing of its subway system was not true -- and was probably a hoax, federal officials said Tuesday," according to The Los Angeles Times.
The article continues: "Several law enforcement sources said the informant came to U.S. officials with a detailed story about a terrorist plot involving men who would travel from Iraq to Syria and to New York, where they would detonate bombs in the subway, using strollers and other devices to hide them."
In "A False Sense of Insecurity," Ohio State University professor John Mueller writes in Cato's Regulation magazine: "For all the attention it evokes, terrorism actually causes rather little damage and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic. Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in 'the age of terror.' However, while obviously deeply tragic for those directly involved, the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism is generally only a few hundred a year, tiny compared to the numbers who die in most civil wars or from automobile accidents. In fact, in almost all years, the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of international terrorists anywhere in the world is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States."
In the Cato Briefing Paper "The Security Pretext: An Examination of the Growth of Federal Police Agencies," Melanie Scarborough, a monthly columnist for The Washington Post, writes: "Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, bureaucrats and special interest groups have been busy repackaging everything from peanut subsidies to steel protectionism under the rubric of 'national security.' Federal law enforcement agencies have also been expanding their power in the name of combating terrorism, whether or not such expansion has anything to do with enhancing security. One safeguard that exists to prevent such abuse is congressional oversight, but too many members of Congress are too often reluctant to challenge law enforcement officials."
Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense
"In the District, a driver can be arrested with as little as .01 blood-alcohol content. ... Although low blood alcohol arrests have been made in other states in conjunction with dangerous driving, lawyers, prosecutors and advocates of drunken driving prevention said they knew of no place besides the District that had such a low threshold for routine DUI arrests. In Maryland and Virginia, as in other states, drivers generally are presumed not to be intoxicated if they test below .05. Nationwide, .08 is the legal limit -- meaning a driver is automatically presumed to be intoxicated," reports The Washington Post.
"'Even one drink can get you in trouble in D.C.,' said Thomas Key, a lawyer who successfully defended a client who had a blood alcohol level of .03. 'They might not win a lot of these cases or prosecute them, but they're still arresting people.'"
In "Drunk Driving Laws Are Out of Control," Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes that our drunk driving laws should be grounded in sound science and the presumption of innocence, not in hysteria. "They should target repeat offenders and severely impaired drunks, not social drinkers who straddle the legal threshold," Balko states. "Though the threat of drunken driving has significantly diminished over the last 20 years, it's still routinely overstated by anti-alcohol activists and lawmakers. Even if the threat were as severe as it's often portrayed, casting aside basic criminal protections and civil liberties is the wrong way to address it."
Holiday Dmitri, editor, hdmitri@cato.org
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