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Cato Daily Dispatch for December 28, 2004

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Courts Improvise in Wake of Sentencing Guidelines Ruling
China Vows to Stop Taiwan Independence
Bill Would Require Restaurants to Post Calorie Counts

Courts Improvise in Wake of Sentencing Guidelines Ruling

"Disarray has enveloped the federal court system for the past six months since a Supreme Court ruling hinted that the guidelines governing federal sentences may be unconstitutional," the Wall Street Journal reports. "As federal judges wait, and wait some more, for the divided high court to deliver a final verdict, they have come up with a myriad of ways to sentence defendants."

In the Cato Policy Analysis "Misguided Guidelines: A Critique of Federal Sentencing," Erik Luna, an associate professor of law at the University of Utah, outlines how the congressionally mandated Federal Sentencing Guidelines undermine constitutional principles and produce unjust results.

"The guidelines have proven to be unfair and unworkable in practice," Luna writes. "Ultimately, Congress must end the Guidelines era and begin anew, guaranteeing that the next 15 years of federal punishment will not be like the last. It is time to scrap the [U.S. Sentencing Commission] and its Guidelines, and to embark on a new age of moral judgment in sentencing."

The book Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, edited by Cato senior editor Gene Healy, describes how 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.

China Vows to Stop Taiwan Independence

"China said on Monday its armed forces had a 'sacred responsibility' to crush moves towards independence by Taiwan, whatever the cost, and described relations with the island as 'grim,'" according to the Financial Times.

"The warning followed Beijing's announcement this month that it would submit an 'anti-secession' bill to the National People's Congress next March."

In "President Bush's Muddled Policy on Taiwan," Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato's vice president for defense and foreign policy studies, argues that Washington should continue selling arms to Taiwan. "A well armed Taiwan raises the cost to Beijing of using force against the island and makes it more likely that PRC leaders will confine themselves to peaceful options in their quest for reunification," Carpenter writes.

"The Taiwanese ought to be told that the question of independence is up to them to decide but that if they opt for independence, they must be prepared to bear all of the consequences on their own. Both Taipei and Beijing need to be informed that the United States will not be a party to any war that might break out in the Taiwan Strait."

Bill Would Require Restaurants to Post Calorie Counts

"Earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration's Obesity Working Group issued its "Calories Count" report urging the FDA to work with restaurants to disclose the number of calories in the products they sell," according to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal. "But that's not good enough for some grinches in Congress. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) and Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D) plan to re-introduce bills requiring chain restaurants with more than 20 outlets to list calorie counts either on menu boards or printed menus."

In "Government Gets Fat Fighting Obesity," Cato policy analyst Radley Balko writes: "The war against obesity is the logical conclusion of our wars against certain drugs and, later, tobacco. The most personal of daily decisions -- what we put into our bodies -- is now a matter of 'public health.'

"... [W]e need to return personal responsibility to the policy-making process. What each individual American puts into his or her body ought to be the sole concern and responsibility of each individual American -- not nutrition activists, not state or federal agencies."

Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org