And the Other Washington Is Messed Up, Too
In a new op-ed, I have the regrettable task of pointing out to my fellow Washingtonians (of the PNW rather than D.C. variety) that we have increased public school spending in the past decade by $1.6 billion and gotten _________ in return. Nothing. Nada. Rien du tout, mes concitoyens.
NAEP scores are pretty much flat at the end of high school, as are SAT scores. It is hard to argue that we really care about children’s education when we’re willing to waste $1.6 billion that is purportedly meant for that purpose. If politicians and voters in the Evergreen State do decide, at some point, to do something for children, the first step would be to stop wasting that $1.6 billion. The next step would be to follow the lead of other states, like Florida, that have found ways to improve student achievement while _lowering_ taxes.
More on the Constitution’s Lack of a Drug-War Exception
Challenges to Florida’s unconstitutional drug laws continue to gain momentum. Following a successful federal district court challenge to the constitutionality of state statutes lacking a mens rea requirement (mental culpability, rather than, for example, incidental possession), people convicted under them have come forward en masse to ask Florida courts to reexamine their convictions.
As described in the background to a previous brief in the case of Florida Dept. of Corrections v. Shelton, the district court held that these sorts of laws offend the constitutional guarantee of due process. Florida’s Supreme Court has now consolidated over 40 appeals resulting from that federal court decision (which itself is now on appeal). Cato has once again joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance, Calvert Institute for Policy Research, Libertarian Law Council, and 38 law professors on a brief supporting the rights of persons convicted under the “strict liability” statutes.
We urge the Florida Supreme Court to follow the federal district court’s lead and strike down laws prohibiting the sale, possession, or delivery of illicit substances without requiring mental culpability. That court now has the opportunity to reverse these unwarranted convictions and purge a nationally singular stain on civil liberties.
The name of the case is Florida v. Adkins.
Thanks to legal associate Paul Jossey for his assistance with this brief and blogpost.
There’s No Drug War Exception to the Constitution
Florida is so zealous in pursuing the war on drugs that its laws classify the possession, sale, and delivery of controlled substances as crimes not requiring the state to prove that the defendant knew he had possessed, sold, or delivered those substances.
In Florida Dept. of Corrections v. Shelton, state prosecutors convicted Mackie Shelton of transporting cocaine under one of these “strict liability” statutes, the trial judge having instructed the jury that the state only needed to prove that Shelton delivered a substance and that the substance was cocaine. Shelton successfully challenged the constitutionality of that state law in federal court, where the district judge overturned the conviction and noted that “Florida stands alone in its express elimination of mens rea as an element of a drug offense.”
Florida appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Cato has joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, ACLU, Drug Policy Alliance, Calvert Institute for Policy Research, and 38 law professors on an amicus brief supporting Shelton’s position.
The Supreme Court has recognized only limited exceptions to the general rule that criminal culpability requires mens rea (a guilty mind). These “strict liability” crimes fall under the rubric of “public welfare offenses” and are typically what most people would not consider “serious,” such as traffic violations and selling alcohol to minors. Policymakers justify dispensing with mens rea requirements in such contexts by citing the need to deter businesses from imposing costs on society at large, or the burden that having to prove mens rea in these sorts of cases would overwhelm courts, or that the penalties are relatively small and carry little social stigma.
Florida’s legislature, however, went well beyond the normal boundaries of public welfare offenses in imposing strict liability for drug crimes that can carry significant prison terms — and thus violated the due process of law and traditional notions of fundamental fairness. As an alternative argument purporting to save its drug laws, Florida points to the availability of affirmative defenses, that these defenses (e.g., “I didn’t know it was cocaine”) to a presumption of guilty intent take the statute out of the (constitutionally dubious) strict liability category.
But a state may not simply presume the mens rea element of a crime: In Patterson v. New York (1977), for example, the Supreme Court held that prosecutors cannot reallocate the burden of proof by forcing a defendant to prove an affirmative defense. In requiring defendants to prove that they are “blameless” in these sorts of drug crimes, Florida’s statutes fail constitutional muster.
We urge the Eleventh Circuit to affirm the district court’s ruling that the offending state law unconstitutional.
Cato’s Latest Obamacare Brief
As I noted yesterday, Obamacare is moving towards its inevitable date with the Supreme Court. Although the pace may be aggravating, attorneys on both sides are strengthening their arguments and clarifying the issues presented.
Cato’s latest brief, filed today in the Eleventh Circuit in support of 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, sharpens the position we already expressed in briefs filed in the Fourth Circuit and the Sixth Circuit. Our focus remains the question of whether the Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance or suffer a fine.
The government has subtly shifted its thinking at this stage, however, to argue that the individual mandate does not so much compel “inactive” citizens to act but merely regulates when and how health care is purchased. Everyone will eventually purchase health care, the argument goes, and the mandate requires that people pre-pay for that care so they don’t shift the costs onto others.
We point out how this argument is a spurious misdirection, an attempt to recharacterize the individual mandate in terms that are directly contrary to the purpose and function of the overall statute. Obamacare explicitly regulates the status of being uninsured—and not just those who seek to shift health care costs to the future or slough them onto taxpayers (indeed, the politically uncomfortable truth is that those most likely to incur health care expenses they cannot pay, the poor, are exempt from the mandate).
We argue that, regardless of the spin that the government places on it, the individual mandate “regulates” inactivity, something that not even modern constitutional doctrine allows. The status of being uninsured cannot be transformed into economic activity via semantic prestidigitation; no matter how artfully articulated, a decision not to purchase insurance, or to do nothing, or to self-insure, is not a federally regulable action. The outermost bounds of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause, as exercised via the Necessary and Proper Clause, reach certain classes of intrastate economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. But Congress cannot reach inactivity even if it purports to act pursuant to a broader regulatory scheme.
Allowing Congress to conscript citizens into economic transactions would not only be unprecedented—as government-friendly the precedent is—but would fundamentally alter the relationship between the sovereign people and their supposed “public servants.” The individual mandate “commandeers the people” into the federal government’s brave new health care world.
The Eleventh Circuit will hear Florida v. U.S. Dep’t of Health & Human Services in Atlanta on June 8.
Lobbyist Writes Fact & Evidence-Free Op-ed, Analyst Not Shocked At All
I recently gave testimony on the merits of an education tax credit bill that’s being considered in South Carolina. Molly Spearman, executive director of the S.C. Association of School Administrators, a public school lobbying group, denounces both the bill and my testimony today in The State newspaper.
Ms. Spearman’s comments reveal either a complete disregard for the basic facts and research findings, or an ignorance of those facts, resulting in errors big and small.
On the small side, she refers to me as a “paid consultant from the Virginia-based Cato Institute” when in reality I’m a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, which is based in Washington D.C. And while I am, unsurprisingly, paid a salary by my employer, I received no compensation of any kind in return for my testimony in the South Carolina legislature.
More concerning, Ms. Spearman claims that an education tax credit program like the one proposed in SC “has no research-based support that is works.” Her review of the research on credit programs appears to have consisted of calling someone in the Florida Department of [Public] Education to ask them why they thought academic achievement in Florida has increased.
Ms. Spearman apparently missed the official government study, conducted by academic researcher David Figlio at Northwestern University, which found the credit program significantly improved the academic achievement of public school students. That’s not surprising, since it’s consistent with the seventeen other studies that find private school choice programs improve public school performance.
Ms. Spearman also dismisses the state savings expected from the program based on a shocking misunderstanding of education funding. State savings are based on the amount of the credit and the amount of state funding that changes when a student leaves public school; fixed classroom costs have nothing to do with it. The state will save about $500 per student under this program.
The school districts will save much more; about $5,500 in additional funds for every student who leaves even after subtracting fixed costs. Ms. Spearman acts as if almost no money is saved when a student leaves. Here’s a question; then why do public school demand full funding for each additional new student? It works both ways . . . if one fewer student saved little money, then one more would add little cost. In fact, an academic study has found that only about 20 percent of student funding in South Carolina is fixed in the short term. In the long-term, there are no fixed costs at all.
Again, this is no surprise; an official government analysis found Florida’s credit saved about $1.50 for ever dollar in credits while improving the academic achievement of public school students. Numerous studies demonstrate large actual and potential savings from private choice programs.
There are more errors in other areas, which is remarkable for a piece under 700 words, but I’ll close with Ms. Spearman’s final thought; “We are falling behind our neighbors in North Carolina and Georgia. We cannot gamble on this legislation.”
How ironic . . . Georgia adopted a relatively large education tax credit program in 2008, while North Carolina is seriously considering a tax credit proposal of it’s own this year. South Carolina can’t afford not to adopt education tax credit reform.
Had Ms. Spearman done her due diligence on this education issue, or had she called me and asked, she could have avoided these embarrassing errors.
Ms. Spearman’s article is all the more concerning because she is a former schoolteacher and now leads the S.C. Association of School Administrators. South Carolina’s children and taxpayers deserve far better from their leaders in public education
Is the REAL ID Rebellion Coming to Florida?
Until now, Florida has not been one of the states to buck the federal government’s national ID mandate, established in the REAL ID Act of 2005. A pair of grand jury reports in 2002 had moved the state to tighten its driver licensing processes prior to any federal action, so it was already doing many of the things that the Department of Homeland Security is now seeking to require of states in the name of REAL ID.
Full compliance with REAL ID remains a distant hope, so DHS has set out a list of 18 “milestones,” progress toward which it is treating as REAL ID compliance. Full compliance with REAL ID includes putting driver information into a network for nationwide information sharing—including scanned copies of basic identity documents. It includes giving all licensees and ID holders a nationally uniform driver’s license or ID card so their identity can be checked at airports, federal facilities, and wherever the Secretary of Homeland Security determines to have federal checkpoints.
Again, the state of Florida meets DHS’ milestones. Starting from an already strict driver licensing regime, the state’s bureaucrats have been doing (and asking the legislature to do) things that match up with the requirements of the national ID law. But now, thanks to the work of Florida’s Tenth Amendment Center, Floridians Against REAL ID, and others, the legislature is beginning to pay attention.
Why is it so hard for law-abiding citizens and residents of Florida to get or renew their licenses? What kinds of barriers to progress are being thrown in front of lawful immigrants from Haiti, who haven’t the documentation required to get a license and thus a job?
Rep. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orlando) has lived in Florida since 1955 and was elected to the Florida legislature in 2006. She was born in New Orleans and is not able to get a copy of her birth certificate. The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles would not accept her Florida House ID card as proof of her identity!
Several members of the Florida legislature are concerned that the state is scanning and databasing the basic identity documents of Floridians, exposing those documents and the people of Florida to unknown cybersecurity risks. If these databases were hacked, Floridians’ data would be treasure trove for identity fraud. A breach of an entire state’s identity data could collapse the system we now rely on to know who people are. This is not an improvement in security for Floridians.
Florida’s Cuban ex-pat population has some idea of what could result if they were herded into a national identity system. They are too familiar with central government control of access to goods, services, employment, and other essentials of life. Advocates of national ID systems here in the United States have already argued for using REAL ID to control access to employment, to financial services and credit, to medicines, to housing, and more.
In my testimony to the Florida legislature, I noted that the federal government is impotent to enforce REAL ID. The political costs of a DHS attack on air travel (if it refused to recognize drivers’ licenses from non-compliant states at airport checkpoints) would be too high. Indeed, word is spreading that DHS will soon extend the REAL ID deadline once again.
What’s clear from my visit to Florida is that legislators there respond to what they hear from their constituents. It’s unclear what the Florida legislature will do to reassert control of its driver licensing policy from the concerted action of the federal government and its motor vehicle bureaucrats.
One of the questions they might ask is, “Who committed Florida to comply with REAL ID?” That’s item number seventeen in the DHS’ eighteen-point material compliance checklist.
HUD ‘Failing the Taxpayers’
That’s what the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s recently retired inspector general had to say in response to rampant malfeasance and mismanagement at public housing authorities uncovered by a joint investigation by ABC News and The Center for Public Integrity.
From the report:
The problems are widespread, from an executive in New Orleans convicted of embezzling more than $900,000 in housing money around the time he bought a lavish Florida mansion to federal funds wrongly being spent to provide housing for sex offenders or to pay vouchers to residents long since dead.
Despite red flags from its own internal watchdog, HUD has continued to plow fresh federal dollars into these troubled agencies, including $218 million in stimulus funds since 2009, the joint investigation found.
The report singles out Philadelphia’s public housing authority, which HUD reportedly considers to be a “model agency.” The Philadelphia Housing Authority’s outgoing executive director, who was paid $300,000 a year, had “spent lavishly on parties that included belly dancers, and had used more than $500,000 in housing authority funds to secretly settle claims accusing him of inappropriate sexual advances with female employees.”
Here’s the former director of the “model agency” channeling his inner Charlie Sheen on the taxpayer’s dime:
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) doesn’t understand how HUD could have missed the problems:
“We expect that the agency in Washington, D.C. ought to be making sure that every taxpayer dollar is spent in a responsible way. And it seems to me that we have not had that proper oversight,” Grassley said.
Really, Senator? As a Cato essay on HUD scandals illustrates, the agency has been plagued by mismanagement and corruption since its inception. HUD has never made sure every taxpayer dollar was “spent in a responsible way.” And it never will for the simple fact that a government agency has little incentive to ensure that money coerced from taxpayers isn’t wasted. In contrast, a private charity with a record like HUD would see its voluntary donations dry up.
See this Cato for more on public housing subsidies and why they should be abolished.
ObamaCare Challenges Gain Steam
Today’s hearing in Pensacola built on Monday’s ruling out of Richmond: Judge Roger Vinson is likely to hold the individual mandate unconstitutional. And such a decision would be the most significant development possible at the district court level because the Florida case involved 20 states, with more joining the lawsuit when new governors and attorneys general assume office in January. It is unprecedented for this number of states — again, soon to be a majority — to sue the federal government and it shows the singular and extreme nature of the government’s assertion of raw power here.
As Judge Vinson said during the hearing, the Supreme Court has held that the outer bounds of Congress’s regulatory power under the Commerce Clause (as exercised via the Necessary and Proper Clause) is activity that has a substantial effect in interstate commerce. If the government were to prevail under its theory that Congress can regulate any decision with economic ramifications — as two district courts have unfortunately held — then there is no principled limit on federal power. At that point, we might as well throw the Constitution out the window and admit that Congress is the judge of its own authority.
Finally, while Judge Vinson was more skeptical of the Medicaid-related claim that is unique to the Florida lawsuit, it is similarly impossible to draw limits to federal power if we allow Congress to impose a Hobson’s Choice on states of either withdrawing from Medicaid or implementing budget-crippling regulations. At a certain point the strings that Congress attaches to federal funding become coercive — particularly when the new shape of a government program (here, Medicaid) radically transforms the compact states originally joined and have inextricably relied on.
Anti-Obamacare Rulings a Trend or Just Coincidence?
I’m fond of saying that lawsuits don’t proceed at Internet speed — meaning that people are disappointed when I tell them that a new constitutional challenge to uphold property rights or free speech or individual liberty generally will take years to get through the courts, or that we’ll have to wait several months for a court to issue an opinion in some front-page case. But lately it does seem that developments from the ongoing legal challenges to Obamacare are coming faster and faster, as if the train has now left the station and, to badly mix metaphors, it’s snowballing to an eventual collision at the Supreme Court.
That “gaining speed” phenomenon is mainly coincidence — given the more than 20 Obamacare lawsuits out there, briefing schedules, hearings, and rulings are bound to overlap at some point — but it has been interesting to compare and contrast the events of the last 10 days. To recap some of the high points, this summer Judge Henry Hudson denied the government’s motion to dismiss Virginia’s law suit (read my comments here and Cato’s brief here). Then two weeks ago, Judge George Steeh granted a similar motion in a case brought by the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan — in a cursory opinion I react to here and critique in this op-ed.
Last Thursday, Judge Roger Vinson issued a 65-page opinion allowing most of the lawsuit brought by 20 states, the National Federation of Independent Business, and two individuals to proceed (my reaction here). This is an important ruling spelling out the unprecedented nature of the power Congress purports to assert here, with the individual mandate of course but also in potentially commandeering state officials and coercing them with strings attached to Medicaid funds and other regulatory burdens.
Finally, yesterday Judge Hudson held a hearing in Richmond on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment — which means both sides agree that no material facts are in dispute and the court should go ahead and rule on the law without having a trial. (Cato filed a brief for this stage of proceedings as well.) By all accounts, the hearing went well for Virginia; Judge Hudson was skeptical of the government’s argument that individual decisions not to enter the insurance marketplace was the sort of “local economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce” that the Supreme Court has said marks the outer bounds of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. The judge also indicated that he would issue an opinion by the end of the year.
This is all heartening news — the courts that are seriously grappling with these lawsuits (and especially the highest profile cases brought by the 21 states) actually think the Constitution places limits on federal power. Then again, I can’t believe that question is even up for discussion! Stay tuned — and keep track of all the lawsuits at healthcarelawsuits.org.
Jilted Cavs Fans Should Blame Ohio’s Income Tax
Supporters of the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially the owner of the team, are upset that basketball superstar LeBron James has decided to sign with the Miami Heat. The anger is especially intense because the Cavaliers offered James $4 million more over the next five years. But their anger is misplaced because more money in Cleveland actually translates into about $1 million less disposable income when the burden of state and local income taxes is added to the equation. Rather than condemn James for making a rational choice, local basketball fans should tar and feather Ohio politicians.
This story from CNBC walks through the calculations.
[I]f you match up what James’ salary would be for the first five years in Cleveland and the five years in Miami, you find that the Cavaliers are only offering him $4 million more. That advantage gets erased — and actually gives the Heat the monetary edge over — when you consider the income tax difference. …Playing in Cleveland, LeBron would face a state income tax of 5.925 percent, plus a Cleveland city tax of two percent. Over the first five years of a new contract with Cleveland, James would give back $3,953,060 combined to the state and city for the 41 games each season he’d play at home. But James would have to pay none of that for home games in Miami since Florida doesn’t have an income tax. Athletes have to pay income taxes to states that they play in on the road, so the games he’ll play away from home — whether he played for Cleveland or Miami — are essentially a wash. But there are, on average, 11 away games per season where James would have to pay Ohio and Cleveland taxes. Why? Because he has to pay when he plays in the six areas –– Florida, Texas, Washington D.C., Illinois, Toronto and Tennessee –– that have no jock taxes. That’s another $1,061,128 he’ll have to pay in taxes that he wouldn’t have to pay in Miami.
New York basketball fans also should be angry. With some of the highest taxes in the nation, many of which target highly productive people as part of a class-warfare policy, New York is bad news for professional athletes. The New York Post, commenting on the probability that James would sign with the Miami Heat, identified the real villains.
[B]lame our dysfunctional lawmakers in Albany, who have saddled top-earning New Yorkers with the highest state and city income taxes in the nation, soon to be 12.85 percent on top of the IRS bite. There is no state income tax in Florida. On a five-year contract worth $96 million — what he’d get from the Knicks or the Heat — LeBron would pay $12.34 million in New York taxes. Quite a penalty for the privilege of working in Midtown.
Now let’s look at the big picture. The calculations that LeBron James made when deciding to sign with the Miami Heat are the same calculations that companies make when deciding whether to build factories and create jobs. So when people wonder why high-tax states such as Ohio, California, and New York are losing jobs to zero–income tax states such as Florida and Texas, part of the answer should be obvious. And if we move to the global level, folks should not be too surprised that companies and investors, all other things equal, are likely to avoid the United States, with its punitive 35 percent corporate tax, and instead create jobs and build wealth in places like Hong Kong, Ireland, and Switzerland.
Update on the Legal Challenges to Obamacare
Since I first issued my challenge to debate “anyone anytime anywhere” on the (un)constitutionality of Obamacare, a lot has happened. For one thing, Randy Barnett and Richard Epstein, among many others, have published provoctive articles looking at issues beyond the Commerce Clause justification for the individual mandate — such as the argument that Congress’s tax power justifies the mandate penalty and that the new Medicaid arrangement amounts to a coercive federal-state bargain. (Look for to a longish article from yours truly due to come out in next month’s issue of Health Affairs.) For another, as Michael Cannon noted, seven more states — plus the National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals – have joined the Florida-led lawsuit against Obamacare. Perhaps most importantly, such legal challenges are gaining mainstream credibility.
Here’s a brief look at some important legal filings from the past 10 days:
- On May 11, the U.S. government filed a response to the Thomas More Center’s lawsuit asking a federal court in Michigan to enjoin Obamacare on various grounds, including, distinct from other suits I’ve seen, religious liberty violations from having to pay for abortions. The government argues that the plaintiffs lack standing because it’s unclear whether the individual mandate will harm them and in any event this provision doesn’t go into effect until 2014 at the earliest. The government also predictably argues that the mandate is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce and to provide for the general welfare. There is nothing surprising here and we now await the court’s preliminary ruling.
- On May 12, the U.S. Citizens Association (a conservative group) and five individuals filed a new suit in Ohio, as Jacob Sullum notes. In addition to the government powers arguments that are being made in most Obamacare lawsuits (most notably the state suits), this suit claims a violation of: the First Amendment freedom of association (the government forces people to associate with insurers); individual liberty interests under the Fifth Amendment; and the right to privacy under the Fifth Amendment’s liberty provision, Ninth Amendment retained rights, and the rights emanating from the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments (such is the Court’s convoluted jurisprudence in this area). I’ll add that the attorney filing this suit, Jonathan Emord, worked for Cato over 20 years ago.
- On May 14, Florida filed an amended complaint that, along with adding seven states, two individuals, and the NFIB — so all potential standing bases are covered — beefs up relevant factual allegations and, most importantly, shores up a few legal insufficiencies to the previous claims. This is a solid complaint, and alleges the following counts: (1) the individual mandate/penalty exceeds Congress’s power under both the Commerce Clause and taxing power and, as such, violate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; (2) the mandate violate’s the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; (3) the mandate penalty is an unconstitutional capitation or direct tax because it is unapportioned; (4) the Medicare expansion constitutes a coercive federal-state bargain that commandeers state officials; (5) a different formulation of coercion/commandeering; and (6) interference with state sovereignty and functions under the Tenth Amendment. After further briefing, oral arguments on the government’s expected motion to dismiss are scheduled for September 14 in Pensacola.
- At least one enterprising analyst has determined that the 2,400-page bill lacks a severability clause. This means that if one part of the bill is struck down as unconstitutional, the whole thing falls! — and would mean that the drafters committed legal malpractice of the highest order. I guess it goes to show that nobody has read the whole thing.
Finally, if anybody is reading this is in Seattle, I’ll be debating Obamacare at the University of Washington Law School next Thursday, May 27 at 4:30pm. This debate, sponsored by a number of groups, including the law school itself and the Federalist Society, is free and open to the public. For those interested in other subjects, I’ll be giving a different talk to the Puget Sound Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter the day before at 6:30pm at the Washington Athletic Club ($25, rsvp to Michael Bindas at mbindas@ij.org). The title of that one is “Justice Elena Kagan? What the President’s Choice Tells Us About the Modern Court and Confirmation Process.” Please do introduce yourself to me if you attend either event.
Crist Fiscally Responsible? Not So Fast
He did it again: Florida governor and senatorial candidate Charlie Crist cited Cato’s 2008 Governors’ Report Card as evidence of his fiscal conservative credentials, this time in a Fox News Sunday debate with his primary opponent Marco Rubio.
Trouble is, the report card’s author, Chris Edwards, has gone on the record again and again explaining how Crist has fallen hard off the fiscal responsibility wagon since the report was released two years ago.
The Florida media has publicized Edwards’ correction of the record numerous times since Crist began citing the Cato rating in his political ads. It is difficult to believe that Crist can be unaware of that.
Here’s Edwards in October 2009:
Since I wrote the report in mid-2008, the governor seems to have fallen off the fiscal responsibility horse.
In particular, Crist approved a huge $2.2 billion tax increase for the fiscal 2010 budget, even though he had promised that $12 billion in federal “stimulus” money showered on Florida over three years would obviate the need for tax increases.
About $1 billion of the tax increases are on cigarette consumers, which will particularly harm moderate-income families. The rest of the increases are in the form of higher costs for often mandatory services, such as automobile registration, which is really just a sneaky form of tax increases.
Watch the exchange below. Crist cites Cato at 8:43:
Transcript here.
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