Pun Salad

"… and how about decreeing new crimes, like flag burning?"

For more on that:

• This should be off the table. Robby Soave points out an inconvenient truth: Trump's executive order prohibiting flag burning is unconstitutional.

  President Donald Trump issued an executive order prohibiting the burning of the American flag on Monday. There's a big problem with the order, though—one that Trump even acknowledged in his press conference touting the E.O. Flag burning is clearly protected by the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has twice affirmed that this is so.

  Moreover, any administration that purports to care about freedom of speech should easily reach the conclusion that criminalizing provocative yet nonviolent acts of political expression is a violation of this principle, even if the constitutional issue was not so cut and dry.

• Will the EO cause any prosecutions, or is Trump just baiting his adversaries? Noah Rothman is Betting on the Bait.

  Those who have taken the time to peruse Donald Trump’s executive order on “Prosecuting Burning of the American Flag” know that it does not, in fact, recommend the federal prosecution of those who burn or are otherwise “desecrating” the flag. Instead, it notes that the Justice Department will take actions “consistent with the First Amendment,” which has been found by the Supreme Court to protect activities like flag burning. Indeed, only if acts of flag desecration amount to incitement to violence (which would be a high hurdle to clear in a courtroom) or if the flag-burner is engaged in other criminal behaviors are offenders likely to be prosecuted.

  There is just a lot less to this initiative than the heavy breathing that it has inspired among the executive orders critics and supporters alike would lead observers to believe. Indeed, the reaction to this order seems so divorced from its black-and-white text that we can probably conclude that inspiring impassioned reactions was the whole point of the exercise.

  So there's almost certainly not much going on here other than another display of Trump's deeply flawed character.

• 

  But it gives me a chance to quote SCOTUS Justice Nino. I recently read The Essential Scalia (Amazon link at your right, my report is here), there was a super-relevant quote within and (fortunately) Jonathan Turley dug it out so I don't have to: Running it up the Flagpole: Why the Trump Order on Flag Burning is Unconstitutional. In his SCOTUS votes, Scalia was a consistent libertarian on the issue:

  Scalia continued to defend his votes in public comments. He stressed that “if it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

  He later added:

  Yes, if I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government. I mean, that was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.

  Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea – “I hate the government,” “the government is unjust,” whatever.

  If I were king, I would demand that you check out our Eye Candy du Jour from Mr. Ramirez one more time.

• It's not as hard as you might think! Kevin D. Williamson describes How to Murder an Economy With Happy Talk.

  We should have eaten our spinach.

  Nearly 20 years ago, I started writing a column for National Review called “Exchequer,” with a focus on fiscal policy, debt, and deficits. A point I frequently returned to—and frequently return to still—is that dealing with our national debt problem and getting the U.S. government’s finances back onto stable footing is something that will be easier to do the sooner we start and more painful to do the longer we wait, especially if we put off reform until we are in a fiscal crisis of some kind, which is what Washington seems dead set on doing.

  I was—and am—what my friend Larry Kudlow calls an “eat-your-spinach guy.” Kudlow and other sunny optimists, such as Arthur Laffer, are not big on eating spinach. They are big on ordering dessert first, counting on tax cuts and other incentives to goose the economy to such an extent that GDP growth does the hard work for us—what I have referred to at times as “naïve supply-side” economics. When it comes to diet, eating dessert first will indeed tend to make you grow (like it or not), but economic growth is, alas, a little more difficult to goose.

  KDW's spinach recipe seems to (roughly) involve getting Uncle Stupid's revenue and expenditures to where they were at the end of the Clinton era: about 20% of GDP. (FY 2024 revenue: about 17% of GDP; spending: about 23% of GDP.)

  I wouldn't be happy with taxes that high, but it's better than fiscal armageddon.

• But speaking of "happy talk"… Bryan Caplan has a question for you: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

  Economists have long scoffed at know-it-all business and financial gurus with the rhetorical question, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” And sometimes the gurus use the same question to scoff at know-it-all economists.

  The standard answer, which I’ve occasionally used myself is: “I’m claiming that society is dysfunctional, not that there’s a viable get-rich-quick scheme lying on the sidewalk.” Open borders, for example, holds immense economic promise, but to activate it, you have to persuade a country — or at least a government — that open borders is a good idea. And both persuasive efforts are, alas, exercises in futility.

  On further thought, however, there are also plenty of unilaterally feasible ways to get rich that most of us leave lying on the sidewalk nonetheless. Such as? Work much longer hours. Work on weekends. Take second (and third) jobs. Take the highest-paid job, regardless of your quality of life. Easiest of all: Live way below your means — and invest the money you save. Seriously, have you ever considered how little money you actually need to keep earning money?

  The obvious response to these tactics, of course, is: “It’s not too smart to live in toil and poverty in order to maximize net worth.” A fine objection, but it highlights a much-neglected opportunity to scoff at know-it-alls. Rather than ask, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?,” we should be asking, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?”

  So there.