Fred Clark has a really neat idea about how to Fix the deficit. Implementation is a bit tricky, but it has all sorts of good properties if one could pull it off.
For background, consider Kevin Drum's pithy observation that — unless we go down the road of giving rich people more tax cuts at the expense of poor people's kids — everything you really need to know about the deficit is captured in one chart on p.4 of this testimony by the Congressional Budget Office.
I'd say more, but it's wall-to-wall meetings today.
Blenderlaw reminds me that:
The American Society of International Law is meeting in Miami this week (the program is here and the UM announcement is here).
This serves as the kick-off to the happy part of the year in which all sorts of great things happen in Miami (and at the law school) because the weather is so good.
Lawyers with any interest in treaties and their interpretation will be fascinated by Duncan Hollis’s Opinio Juris, A Head-Spinning Self-Execution Story.
In brief the Bush administration negotiated a bilateral treaty with a preamble that said both sides understood it would be self-executing under US law.
Then, the administration told the Senate it would not be. And the Senate ratified with a proviso saying that it wasn’t self-executing.
Congress then passed implementing legislation, making the issue moot. But what an issue!
Even so, it is as Hollis says, a wild story. (Go read it, I left out a lot.)
Unfortunately the demo video is in French, but even if you don't speak French you will get the idea of the enormous potential of this device!
I'd hurry to buy one but for the fact that any substantial quantity of alcohol interacts badly with my meds.
(Thanks to KR for the link.)
Worth Reading: Stephen M. Walt, Delusion Points in Foreign Policy.
Recent Bluessky Posts
Jotwell Blenderlaw