Law Commons^™

Commerce Clause Restraints On State Tax Incentives, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

The states' provision of tax incentives designed to encourage economic development within their borders has long been a feature of the American legislative landscape. Today every state provides tax incentives as an inducement to local industrial location and expansion. Indeed, scarcely a day goes by without some state offering yet another tax incentive to spur economic development, often in an effort to attract a particular enterprise to the state.

The debate over the efficacy and wisdom of state tax and other business incentives is intense and important, as other articles in this Symposium plainly reveal. My purpose here, however, is …

Ulysses At The Mast: Democracy, Federalism, And The Sirens' Song Of The Seventeenth Amendment, Jay S. Bybee

Scholarly Works

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Constitution is the manner in which it marbles together people and states. By ratifying the Constitution, the states agreed to cede a portion of their sovereignty to a new entity, the ‘United States.’ The states granted to Congress their collective powers to impose taxes, incur debt, issue coin and securities, regulate commerce among the states and with other sovereigns, and control the engines of war. The states further relinquished their rights to act as independent sovereigns and enter into treaties with foreign countries, coin money, grant titles of nobility, and wage war. …