Attention to the Unseen

Joseph Blocher and Reva Siegel write: Why regulate guns? The standard answer is that gun laws can prevent needless deaths and physical injury. But this is not a complete accounting. As gun-brandishing protesters and armed invasions of legislatures demonstrate, guns inflict more than physical injuries—they transform the public sphere on which a constitutional democracy depends. America must regulate guns not only to protect life, but to protect its citizens’ equal freedoms to speak, assemble, worship, and vote without fear. If…

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Vox reports: After a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, Americans are once again confronting the country’s unique relationship with guns. America is certainly an exceptional country when it comes to firearms. It’s one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But the relationship is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most homicidal — in large part due to the easy access many…

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Tom K. Wong, Gabriel De Roche and Jesus Rojas Venzor write: Last week, at the U.S. border with Mexico, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared that the recent increase in unaccompanied minors attempting to enter the United States was a “crisis … created by the presidential policies of this new administration.” We looked at data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to see whether there’s a “crisis” — or even a “surge,” as many news outlets have characterized it….

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The New York Times reports: In late January, a small group of dedicated volunteers from the conservative Heritage Action for America met with Republican legislators in Georgia, delivering a letter containing detailed proposals for rolling back access to voting. Within days, bills to restrict voting access in Georgia began flooding the Legislature. Of the 68 bills pertaining to voting, at least 23 had similar language or were firmly rooted in the principles laid out in the Heritage group’s letter and…

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The New York Times reports: President Biden’s economic advisers are pulling together a sweeping $3 trillion package to boost the economy, reduce carbon emissions and narrow economic inequality, beginning with a giant infrastructure plan that may be financed in part through tax increases on corporations and the rich. After months of internal debate, Mr. Biden’s advisers are expected to present the spending proposal to the president and congressional leaders this week, as well as begin outreach to industry and labor…

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The New York Times reports: At Adewale Adeyemo’s confirmation hearing last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed the deputy Treasury secretary nominee to commit to using the department’s regulatory powers to scrutinize the private equity industry, which she said posed a risk to low-income communities when buyout firms strip companies of assets, load them with debt and fire workers. Ms. Warren, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts, has been a mentor to Mr. Adeyemo, who served as her chief of staff when…

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Michael Heller and James Salzman write: Over the past pandemic year, American billionaires have grown $1.3 trillion richer, the beneficiaries of a soaring stock market. Income inequality has widened. One response is imposing new taxes on wealth, such as those just introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), but that approach faces significant political hurdles. There’s another way to tackle the problem. Instead of focusing only on taxing wealth accumulation, we can address the hidden flip side — wealth transmission. America’s…

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Bloomberg reports: More than 20% of the wealthiest Americans’ income isn’t being reported to the Internal Revenue Service, according to a new study that calculates U.S. tax evasion is far higher than previously estimated. Random audits of the rich can detect some tax evasion, but the study’s authors found that the IRS easily misses income hidden in sophisticated ways, including in private businesses and offshore structures. Collecting all unpaid income tax from the top 1% would boost revenue to the…

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Politico reports: The average tax rate on U.S. corporations fell by more than half, to 7.8 percent, in the wake of Republicans’ 2017 tax overhaul, according to a new government analysis. In a report sure to inflame the debate over corporate taxation, the official Joint Committee on Taxation also said businesses continue to make extensive use of offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to reduce their tax bills. At the same time, the nonpartisan office said,…

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