Law Commons^™

The Case For State Borrowing As A Response To The Current Crisis, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The coronavirus pandemic is a national emergency that requires a national response. Asking states to absorb the budgetary losses caused by the pandemic while they are tasked with providing essential frontline services is comparable to asking states during World War II to pay for the landing in Normandy.

This article is a contribution to Project SAFE: State Action in Fiscal Emergencies. We have already argued, more than once, that the federal government should borrow to prevent steep state and local budget cuts. But because the federal government will apparently not take sufficient action, we offer these ideas to states for …

Strategic Nonconformity To The Tcja, Part I: Personal Income Taxes, Darien Shanske, Adam Thimmesch, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The dire revenue situation that COVID-19 has created for state and local governments is a well documented and looming reality for state legislatures. We and others have explored a variety of ways that states should respond to this crisis in prior articles as a part of Project SAFE (State Action in Fiscal Emergencies), an academic effort to help states weather the fiscal crisis by providing policy recommendations backed by research. We think, as do many others, that in the absence of sufficient federal action, the states should prioritize raising revenue through targeted taxes on economic actors that are best enduring …

Conformity And State Income Taxes: Suggestions For The Crisis, David Gamage, Michael A. Livingston

Articles by Maurer Faculty

To guarantee adequate revenue in the postCOVID-19 era, state governments should consider using all possible tools at their disposal. This article explains how and why state governments should evaluate their degree of conformity with federal tax changes in order to achieve this purpose.

States Should Consider Partial Wealth Tax Reforms, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article is a contribution to Project SAFE (State Action in Fiscal Emergencies). In other essays in this project, we explain steps the federal government should take to help state and local governments cope with their looming budget crises. The federal government is much better positioned to manage these crises than states and localities and, ideally, it would act sufficiently to prevent the need for state and local governments to cut spending or raise taxes. However, we fear that the federal government may fail to act sufficiently, leaving states and localities with the need to make painful spending cuts, raise …

How The Federal Reserve Should Help States And Localities Right Now, Darien Shanske, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The COVID-19 pandemic is a giant catastrophe, but the Federal Reserve can still mitigate the looming fiscal crises facing state and local governments. This article — a contribution to Project SAFE (State Action in Fiscal Emergencies) — builds on our prior background essay explaining state and local budget issues.

States Should Quickly Reform Unemployment Insurance, Brian Galle, David Gamage, Erin Scharff, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

COVID-19 is causing mass layoffs and related economic hardship, as well as budget crises for state and local governments. This article is part of Project SAFE (State Action in Fiscal Emergencies), an academic effort to help states weather the fiscal crisis by providing policy recommendations backed by research. This article will focus on how state governments should reform unemployment insurance (UI) eligibility and benefits and the taxes funding these programs.

Tax Cannibalization By State Corporate Taxes: Policy Implications, Darien Shanske, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The tax cannibalization problem is especially large for state corporate income taxes because state governments piggyback on a deeply flawed federal corporate tax base. In this article, we clarify a point of possible confusion about these issues and then discuss some policy implications.

Tax Cannibalization By State Corporate Taxes: Revised Estimates, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

To what extent do our prior estimates for the tax cannibalization problem still apply post-2017? In this article we address that question, focusing on the implications of the reduced federal corporate income tax rate.