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Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp is soon to roll out a plan for comprehensive tax reform. He is to be commended for doing so. Our tax code is an absolute mess with incentives for all sorts of bad behavior. Early reports suggest, however, that Congressman Camp will also include a “bank tax” to both raise revenue and address the “Too-Big-To-Fail” (TBTF) status of our nation’s largest banks. While the evidence overwhelmingly suggests to me that TBTF is real, with extremely harmful effects on our financial system, I fear Camp’s approach will actually make the problem worse, increasing the market perception that some entities will be rescued by the federal government.

Bloomberg reports the plan would raise “would raise $86.4 billion for the U.S. government over the next decade…would likely affect JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.” The proposal would do so by assessing a 3.5 basis-point tax on assets exceeding $500 billion.

While standard Pigouvian welfare analysis would recommend a tax to internalize any negatives externalities, TBTF is not like pollution, it isn’t something large banks create. It is something the government creates by coming to their rescue. I don’t see TBTF as a switch, but rather a dial between 100 percent chance of a rescue and zero. By turning the banks into a revenue stream for the federal government, we would likely move that dial closer to 100 percent–and that is in the wrong direction. For the same reason, I have opposed efforts to tax Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the past. The solution is not to bind large financial institutions and the government closer together, as a bank tax would, but to further separate government and the financial sector. Just over a year ago, I laid out a path for doing so in National Review. Were we to truly end bailouts, limiting government is the only way to get that dial close to zero. 

If we want to use the tax code to reduce the harm of financial crises, then we should focus on reducing the preferences for debt over equity, which drive so much of the leverage in our financial system. I’ve suggest such here in more detail. There are also early reports that Camp’s plan will reduce some of these debt preferences. Let’s hope those remain in the plan.

Even though I’m for marriage equality — next week I’ll be filing a brief supporting the challenge to the marriage laws of Oklahoma and Utah in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit — I have no problem with Arizona’s SB 1062.

SB 1062 does nothing more than align state law with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (which passed the House unanimously, the Senate 97–3, and was signed by President Clinton in 1993). That is, no government action can “substantially burden” religious exercise unless the government uses “the least restrictive means” to further a “compelling interest.” This doesn’t mean that people can “do whatever they want” — laws against murder would still trump religious human sacrifice — but it would prevent the government from forcing people to violate their religion if that can at all be avoided. Moreover, there’s no mention of sexual orientation (or any other class or category).

The prototypical scenario that SB 1062 is meant to prevent is the case of the New Mexico wedding photographer who was fined for declining to work a same-sex commitment ceremony. This photographer doesn’t refuse to provide services to gay clients, but felt that she couldn’t participate in the celebration of a gay wedding. There’s also the Oregon bakery that closed rather than having to provide wedding cakes for same-sex ceremonies. Why should these people be forced to engage in activity that violates their religious beliefs?

For that matter, gay photographers and bakers shouldn’t be forced to work religious celebrations, Jews shouldn’t be forced to work Nazi rallies, and environmentalists shouldn’t be forced to work job fairs in logging communities. This isn’t the Jim Crow South; there are plenty of wedding photographers — over 100 in Albuquerque — and bakeries who would be willing to do business regardless of sexual orientation, and no state is enforcing segregation laws. I bet plenty of Arizona businesses would and do see more customers if they advertised that they welcomed the LGBT community.

At the end of the day, that’s what this is about: tolerance and respect for other people’s beliefs. While governments have the duty to treat everyone equally under the law, private individuals should be able to make their own decisions on whom to do business with and how — on religious or any other grounds. Those who disagree can take their custom elsewhere and encourage others to do the same. 

Uncle Sam is essentially broke. But the federal government keeps spending. The House is voting this week on a measure already adopted by the U.S. Senate to suspend money-saving reforms adopted less than two years ago.

In 1968 Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program, shifting the cost of disasters from people who chose to live in flood-prone areas to taxpayers who don’t. Over time Congress kept cutting premiums. By 1982 two-thirds of participants received a subsidy.

NFIP turned into foolishness squared. The first cost is financial: the federal government keeps insurance premiums low for people who choose to build where they otherwise wouldn’t. The Congressional Research Service figured that the government charges about one-third of the market rate for flood insurance. The second cost is environmental: Washington essentially pays participants to build on environmentally-fragile lands that tend to flood. 

Uncle Sam also has a propensity to spend billions more to rebuild public buildings and infrastructure in flood zones. 

Although not every NFIP beneficiary is wealthy, CRS noted: “Some critics point out that the costs—financial risk and ecological damage—are widely distributed to taxpayers across the country and the benefits, by contrast are disproportionately enjoyed by wealthy counties and by owners of vacation homes.”

NFIP’s overall liability is $1.3 trillion. Today total program debt is about $25 billion. Economists Judith Kildow and Jason Scorse warned that “the flood insurance program is a fiscal time bomb for the government.” 

So disastrous were the program’s finances that even Congress felt the need to act. In July 2012 legislators approved the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act in an attempt to make the NFIP more accurate, efficient, and solvent. For different properties rates were increased and subsidies were cut. Overall, the legislation was expected to save about $25 billion.

The amendment worked—too well. Insurance bills began increasing. People used to living well at taxpayer expense complained to their legislators. Interest groups which profit from property sales also raced to Capitol Hill, 

So now reform co-sponsor Rep. Maxine Waters (D‑Ca.) is pushing to delay the reforms until 2018. Of course, in 2018 no one will be more willing to pay higher premiums, and undoubtedly will again lobby for further relief from Congress.

Explained Waters: “Never in our wildest dreams did we think the premium increases would be what they appear to be today.” Her new legislation, backed by a mix of Republicans and Democrats, would bar increases in premiums and reductions in subsidies for some properties, restore earlier subsidies for others, and mandate an “affordability study.”

Said Waters: “neither Democrats nor Republican envisioned it would reap the kind of harm and heartache that may result from this law.” She was echoed by Nicholas Pinter, a professor at Southern Illinois University, who advocated reforms but also “compassion for Americans living on flood-prone lands.” 

As I point out in my new article on Forbes online: 

Actually, those people need to be held responsible for their actions. Compassion should be accorded taxpayers, who have suffered for decades. Mississippi Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney said the NFIP should not make up its shortfall from homeowners who “simply followed the rules.” But if not them, who? After all, they received the benefits of the subsidized insurance.

At the end of January, the Senate voted to effectively kill the 2012 reform. That would “return the program to a state of insolvency,” Shai Akabas of the Bipartisan Policy Center told the New York Times. 

The Republican House leadership has approved a vote on a companion measure. Even the White House criticized Congress’ potential U‑turn.

In fact, the 2012 measure didn’t go far enough. Congress should eliminate federally-subsidized flood insurance—entirely. There is no justification for turning Uncle Sam into a back-stop for wealthy vacationers and other privileged recipients of federal largesse.

Like Uncle Sam, NFIP is broke. It should be killed, not reformed. Legislators should start exhibiting compassion for American taxpayers.

There’s an ongoing debate about Keynesian economics, stimulus spending, and various versions of fiscal austerity, and regular readers know I do everything possible to explain that you can promote added prosperity by reducing the burden of government spending.

Simply stated, we get more jobs, output, and growth when resources are allocated by competitive markets. But when resources are allocated by political forces, cronyism and pork cause inefficiency and waste.

That’s why statist nations languish and market-oriented countries flourish.

Paul Krugman has a different perspective on these issues, which is hardly a revelation. But I am surprised that he often times doesn’t get the numbers quite right when he delves into specific case studies.

He claimed that spending cuts caused an Estonian economic downturn in 2008, but the government’s budget actually skyrocketed by 18 percent that year.

He complained about a “government pullback” in the United Kingdom even though the data show that government spending was climbing faster than inflation.

He even claimed that Hollande’s election in France was a revolt against austerity, notwithstanding the fact that the burden of government spending rose during the Sarkozy years.

My colleague Alan Reynolds pointed out that Krugman mischaracterized the supposed austerity in the PIIGS nations such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.

We have another example to add to the list.

He now wants us to believe that Germany has been a good Keynesian nation.

Here’s some of what Professor Krugman wrote for the New York Times.

I hear people trying to dismiss the overwhelming evidence for large economic damage from fiscal austerity by pointing to Germany: “You say that austerity hurts growth, but the Germans have done a lot of austerity and they’re booming.” Public service announcement: Never, ever make claims about a country’s economic policies (or actually anything about economics) on the basis of what you think you’ve heard people say. Yes, you often hear people talking about austerity, and the Germans are big on praising and demanding austerity. But have they actually imposed a lot of it on themselves? Not so much.

In some sense, I agree with Krugman. I don’t think the Germans have imposed much austerity.

But here’s the problem with his article. We know from the examples above that he’s complained about supposed austerity in places such as the United Kingdom and France, so one would think that the German government must have been more profligate with the public purse.

After all, Krugman wrote they haven’t “imposed a lot of [austerity] on themselves.”

So I followed the advice in Krugman’s “public service announcement.” I didn’t just repeat what people have said. I dug into the data to see what happened to government spending in various nations.

And I know you’ll be shocked to see that Krugman was wrong. The Germans have been more frugal (at least in the sense of increasing spending at the slowest rate) than nations that supposedly are guilty of “spending cuts.”

To ensure that I’m not guilty of cherry-picking the data, I look at three different base years. But it doesn’t matter whether we start before, during, or after the recession. Germany increased spending at the slowest rate.

Moreover, if you look at the IMF data, you’ll see that the Germans also were more frugal than the Swedes, the Belgium, the Dutch, and the Austrians.

So I’m not sure what Krugman is trying to tell us with his chart.

By the way, spending in Switzerland grew at roughly the same rate as it did in Germany. So if Professor Krugman is highlighting Germany as a role model, maybe we can take that as an indirect endorsement of Switzerland’s very good spending cap?

But I won’t hold my breath waiting for that endorsement to become official. After all, Switzerland has reduced the burden of government spending thanks to the spending cap.

Not exactly in line with Krugman’s ideological agenda.

P.S. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with folks who mischaracterize German fiscal policy. When Professor Epstein and I debated a couple of Keynesians in NYC as part of the Intelligence Squared debate, one of our opponents asserted that Germany was a case study for Keynesian stimulus. But when I looked at the data, it turned out that he was prevaricating.

P.P.S. This post, I hasten to add, is not an endorsement of German fiscal policy. As I explained while correcting a mistake in the Washington Post, the burden of government is far too large in Germany. The only good thing I can say is that it hasn’t grown that rapidly in recent years.

P.P.P.S. Let’s close with a look at another example of Krugman’s misleading work. He recently implied that an economist from the Heritage Foundation was being dishonest in some austerity testimony, but I dug into the numbers and discovered that, “critics of Heritage are relying largely on speculative data about what politicians might (or might not) do in the future to imply that the Heritage economist was wrong in his presentation of what’s actually happened over the past six years”

After Solyndra collapsed, the Department of Energy (DOE) should have learned its lesson. Guaranteeing loans for energy and industrial companies is a bad idea. The failures of Beacon Power and Fisker Automotive should have driven home the message. Now, we have further proof that the DOE isn’t paying attention.

Yesterday, DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz traveled to Georgia to announce $6.5 billion in loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors already under construction. 

The loan, like so many others, has the markings of an incredible risky use of taxpayer dollars. According to the Washington Post, the project is already 21 months behind schedule. Additionally, Southern Company, the largest shareholder of the project, had its ratings’ outlook downgraded from “stable” to “negative” by Standard and Poor’s last year, in part because of “cost overruns” at the Georgia facility.

Even more frustrating, the company already had private loans in place to finance construction. Now we, the taxpayers, will save the company $250 million a year in interest costs by bearing the full burden of default.

The company also benefits from $2 billion in other federal tax credits, according to its CEO.

Some deal.

In the media, one hears two different stories regarding the drought in California and Western water problems in general. Liberals say that droughts are being made worse by climate change. Conservatives say that water shortages are being perpetrated by the EPA in a misguided effort to sacrifice farmers for some tiny fish. The Washington Times editorial today is of the latter genre.

The real story is more complicated. It’s not just Mother Nature, and it’s not just farmer vs. fish.

The fundamental problem is that the federal government has been heavily subsidizing Western water for decades, particularly for crop irrigation. Artificially low water prices have encouraged overconsumption and the planting of very dry areas where farming is inefficient and environmentally unsound. Subsidized irrigation farming has created major environmental problems in the San Joaquin Valley, for example.

To make matters worse, federal farm subsidies have boosted demand for irrigation water, which has further encouraged farmers to bring marginal lands into production.

So don’t blame the Delta smelt. Instead, blame antimarket policies going back eight decades in the case of farm subsidies and a century in the case of subsidized water from the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

The long-term solution to the West’s growing water problems is free-market economics. Policymakers should end the farm subsidies, reform water property rights, transfer federal dams and aqueducts to state ownership, and move toward market pricing of water.

For more, see my essay with Peter Hill and check out the great work from the free-market environmentalists at PERC.