BuckeyeBlog

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has released a video by the Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell that discusses the economic problems that would follow adoption of Senator Barack Obama’s idea to impose Social Security taxes on incomes over $250,000. There’s a lot of good information in this video about tax rates, economic growth, Social Security, and proper tax policy:

The Washington Post had a story today about how free trade is helping to move people in Colombia out of poverty. It’s a great reminder that the real way to help people in foreign countries isn’t foreign aid (which has a poor track record of success) but allowing them to sell goods to consumers in the U.S.

Of course, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is on record supporting increasing U.S. foreign aid but is opposed to a free trade deal with Colombia. Why would he be supporting spending more money on aid programs that will likely do nothing to help people but is opposing a deal that has demonstrable benefits for poor Colombians?

Today’s Columbus Dispatch ran E.J. Dionne’s screed about the conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court engaging in activism to reach the decision in the Heller case, striking down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban as unconstitutional. While he throws the term “activism” around, Dionne does not define the term in any meaningful way. Fortunately, the Federalist Society’s blog regarding the recent Supreme Court term includes an interesting discussion about “activism.” Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, provides a useful definition: “the term ‘judicial activism’ succinctly captures the Court’s wrongful invasion of the realm of representative government and the injury that invasion inflicts on the powers of American citizens.”

Under this definition, the U.S. Supreme Court has engaged in liberal judicial activism on numerous occasions, including perhaps most prominently in Roe v. Wade. Regardless of how you feel about abortion as a policy matter, the Roe v. Wade majority went out of its way to invent a right to abortion that is nowhere to be found in the text of the Constitution and effectively struck down state laws regulating abortion across the country. Even liberal scholars agree that the reasoning of Roe is indefensible. (more…)

Mike Maurer is right about the fact that follow-up litigation will be necessary to define the scope of the Second Amendment’s individual right to keep and bear arms. While Heller is a landmark case in that it recognizes the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right, it also is fairly limited, at least on its face, in its application. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia writes that “since this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.” In discussing regulations of the right to keep and bear arms that might be permissible, Scalia avoids speculating about them, writing “there will be time enough to expound upon the historical justifications” for such regulations “if and when those exceptions come before us.”

The ban struck down in Heller was a District of Columbia law. Another issue left undecided by Heller is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms against state or local regulations similar to the DC law.

We may get answers to some of these questions sooner, rather than later, as lawsuits are planned challenging gun restrictions in Chicago and San Fransisco.

Washington, D.C. school choice leader Virginia Walden Ford talks about the importance of families sharing their experience in the scholarship program. My favorite quote from this clip:

Legislators need to see the faces of the children who will benefit from their parents having choices.

Go here for more Voices of School Choice.