Jurisprudence Commons^™

The Easy Case Against Tax Simplification, Samuel A. Donaldson

Samuel A. Donaldson

There is growing political momentum to simplify the Internal Revenue Code. While the federal tax laws should be no more complex than necessary, this Article demonstrates that tax complexity is not as bad as political rhetoric leads us to believe. The Article makes four arguments in support of this thesis. First, the forces comprising tax complexity are either inevitable or net beneficial, so calls for simplification are ultimately pointless. Second, the alleged harms of tax complexity are either unproven or overstated, so the need for simplification is questionable. Third, significant proposals for simplification are flawed because they either overcorrect for …

203 N. Lasalle Five Years Later: Answers To The Open Questions, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 61 (2004), Paul B. Lewis

Paul Lewis

No abstract provided.

The Framers' Federalism And The Affordable Care Act, 44 Conn. L. Rev. 1071 (2012), Steven D. Schwinn

Steven D. Schwinn

Federalism challenges to the Affordable Care Act ("ACA") are inspired by the relatively recent resurgence in federalism concerns in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence. Thus, ACA opponents seek to leverage the Court-created distinction between encouragement and compulsion (in opposition to Medicaid expansion), and the Court-created federalism concern when Congress regulates in a way that could destroy the distinction between what is national and what is local (in opposition to universal coverage). But outside the jurisprudence, the text and history of constitutional federalism tell another story. The text and history suggest that the Constitution created a powerful federal government, of the people …

A Judicial Cure For The Disease Of Overcriminalization, Stephen F. Smith

Stephen F. Smith

No abstract provided.

Decisions Rules And Conduct Rules: On Acoustic Separation In Criminal Law, Meir Dan-Cohen

Meir Dan-Cohen

No abstract provided.

Developing A Durable Right To Health Care, Erin C. Fuse Brown

Erin C. Fuse Brown

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) signature accomplishment was the creation of a statutory right to health care for the uninsured. This is a momentous change in policy, addressing one of the most vexing social issues of our time and affecting millions of people and billions of dollars of the U.S. economy. This ambition and the degree of societal and political debate leading up to the Act’s passage suggests that it is a “superstatute,” a rare breed of statute that can, among other things, create rights and institutions more typically thought to be the province of constitutional undertaking. …

Catalogs, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky

Alex Stein

It is a virtual axiom in the world of law that legal norms come in two prototypes: rules and standards. The accepted lore suggests that rules should be formulated to regulate recurrent and frequent behaviors, whose contours can be defined with sufficient precision. Standards, by contrast, should be employed to address complex, variegated, behaviors that require the weighing of multiple variables. Rules rely on an ex ante perspective and are therefore considered the domain of the legislator; standards embody a preference for ex post, ad-hoc, analysis and are therefore considered the domain of courts. The rules/standards dichotomy has become a …

Bubbles (Or, Some Reflections On The Basic Laws Of Human Relations), Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Environmental protection and economic concerns are not mutually exclusive. This article explores some of the issues of economic analysis that might arise as we approach the fourth generation of environmental law. It explains ways that economic analysis can be employed to generate the best environmental rules, including measures under what this article terms as "economics-based environmentalism." Economics-based environmentalism contends that the advantages of using economic principles within a “polycentric toolbox” of environmental law come from the benefits available in private ordering, markets, property rights, liability regimes and incentives structures that will better protect the environment than alternatives like state-based interventionist, …

A Framework For Understanding Property Regulation And Land Use Control From A Dynamic Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan