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Cato Daily Dispatch for November 17, 2004

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Key Senator Expresses Doubts over Tax Reform
Judge in Marijuana Case Questions Sentencing Guidelines
Asbestos Torts May Get a Closer Look

Key Senator Expresses Doubts over Tax Reform

"The Senate's top tax-writer expressed doubts Tuesday about prospects for a major overhaul of the tax code, dealing a blow to one of President Bush's top priorities two weeks after his re-election," USA Today reports.

"Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Bush would have to aggressively use his 'bully pulpit' to win wider popular support. After the election, Bush said he had earned 'political capital, and now I intend to spend it' by pushing for changes in the tax code and Social Security, among other things. But Grassley said, 'I'm not sure how much political capital (the president) is prepared to spend on it.'"

In "Simplifying Federal Taxes: The Advantages of Consumption-Based Taxation," Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies, writes: "The complexity and inefficiency of the individual and corporate income taxes have led to great interest in replacing them with a consumption-based tax. The leading consumption-based tax proposals, including the national retail sales tax and the Hall-Rabushka flat tax, could dramatically simplify federal taxation. Those tax systems would eliminate many of the most complex aspects of federal taxation, including depreciation accounting and capital gains taxation."

Judge in Marijuana Case Questions Sentencing Guidelines

"In a case that has spurred intense soul-searching in legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who was arrested two years ago for selling small bags of marijuana to a police informant, was sentenced on Tuesday to 55 years in prison," the New York Times reports.

"The judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell of the United States District Court [in Salt Lake City], said that he pronounced the sentence 'reluctantly' but that his hands were tied by a mandatory-minimum law that required the imposition of 55 years on Weldon H. Angelos because he had a gun during at least two of the drug transactions."

In "Misguided Guidelines: A Critique of Federal Sentencing," Erik Luna, an associate professor of law at the University of Utah, says Federal Sentencing Guidelines undermine constitutional principles and produce unjust results. "Because 'tough on crime' platforms tend to have electoral appeal, legislators often play to voters' short-term emotions rather than considering sound public policy, producing criminal justice initiatives with few real benefits to society but large financial and human costs," he writes.

Cato's new book, Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, edited by Cato senior editor Gene Healy, describes how with more than 4,000 federal crimes on the statute books and thousands more buried in the Code of Federal Regulations, the ordinary citizen is increasingly vulnerable to being handcuffed and hauled off to jail for behavior that no sensible person would recognize as a crime.

Asbestos Torts May Get a Closer Look

"One of the great underreported stories of the year is that, after decades of playing ringmaster to the asbestos litigation circus, the tort bar has recently suffered a few important defeats. The biggest one could come soon if a federal judge orders a fresh look at the claims of 'sick' plaintiffs," according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.

"What a welcome change that would be. For years trial lawyers have so dominated this legal arena that the companies they sued have taken to collaborating with their persecutors -- just to be put out of their misery. Some 70 of these firms are in bankruptcy, many of them willing partners in a racket that hands most of their assets to the tort bar and the 90 percent of plaintiffs who aren't ill, while the truly sick waste away in an overcrowded court system."

In "Asbestos Liability Should Be on Domestic Reform Agenda," Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow writes: "Litigants who don't warrant compensation also are grabbing resources that would otherwise be available for those who really have been injured by asbestos. From 1991 to 2000, nine of 10 claims were for nonmalignancies. Two-thirds of the dollars paid went to those cases, even though many, if not most, of the plaintiffs were not sick in any meaningful sense.

"The asbestos legal tsunami has taken decades to develop, so it will take time to control. But the cost of abusive litigation is too high not to begin the reform process, however lengthy it proves to be. The health of both the legal system and the economy demand no less."

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org