Misha Hill for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:
A May ruling from the Supreme Court has opened the door for states to permit legal betting on major league sports. Many state legislators and regulators are considering expanding state-sponsored gambling by allowing betting on major league sports games. But the revenue states could bring in isn’t worth the risk. A 2017 study estimated that sports betting could contribute $3.4 billion in state and local taxes, but that accounts for less than 0.3 percent of total state and local revenue. Legalized gambling, including lotteries, casinos, and other wager-involved activities, is an unsustainable and inadequate long-term revenue source.
States should not expect revenue windfalls from sports betting. Nevada has allowed sports betting since 1984, but it accounts for only 2 percent of the state’s gambling revenue.
In addition to the meager revenue, gambling also has many hidden costs, including encouraging consumers to spend more. This means that consumers have less to spend on other goods. Increases in gambling revenue also mean decreases in sales tax revenue. Further, gambling is a regressive source of revenue — individuals with lower incomes contribute a larger share of their income than those with higher incomes. Although the prospect of sports betting and other regulated gambling may be a tempting revenue source for state lawmakers, this regressive and unsustainable revenue source isn’t worth the risk.
Don’t fear the robots
Robert Litan for the Brookings Institution:
The fears of a jobless dystopia are misplaced. Despite cyclical ups and downs, economies generate new jobs to replace the old ones disrupted by technological change (or by “globalization,” or increased competition from firms in other countries). There are multiple reasons for this … but the simplest is that the savings enabled by automation do not disappear into thin air. They get spent on other goods and services, which creates more jobs elsewhere in the economy.
The real concern about automation is the wages those new jobs pay, or more precisely, on the distribution of those wages. If, as automation proceeds, it continues to favor those especially able to use it at the expense of those who don’t have those skills — economists call them “skills biased” — it will further widen income inequality.
What, then, should be done? There is wide support for slowing automation. According to the same Pew survey reporting high levels of anxiety about automation, 87 percent of Americans say they want a human in “driverless” cars, just in case. Nearly the same level, 85 percent, favors limiting machines to performing primarily those jobs that are dangerous or unhealthy for humans.
Technological advances don’t work in so discriminating a fashion, however. To be sure, robots can defuse bombs at essentially zero risk to human life and are vastly preferred for this task — and other dangerous or dirty jobs — than people. There will always be a market for such innovation. It is safe to count on it continuing.
But most technological advances will be used to reduce the cost of making goods and delivering services, a process that is and will continue to be invisible to consumers. Elected or regulatory officials will not have an easy time singling out and slowing down or preventing every such improvement, nor should they. If anything, given the slow pace of productivity growth and wage growth since the Great Recession, citizens should want faster automation because it is key to realizing more rapid economic growth.
Congress escapes blame for war
Matthew Fay for the Niskanen Center:
The Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) recently released its legal justification for the Trump administration’s April strike on Syria. Similar to actions undertaken by his predecessors, President Trump’s strike — in response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons — took place without either congressional authorization or a formal declaration of war. And, similarly, OLC’s legal justification built on those of precedents for ignoring the legislative branch.
While the attack on Syria was a limited strike — with limited chance of retaliation against the United States — it raises questions about what Congress would have done had President Trump followed through on his threats to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea.
The United States has not declared war since World War II, yet frequently uses military force abroad, for the most part, because it is politically costly for both Congress and the president to formally acknowledge a war, despite the fact that the framers of the Constitution put the war power in the hands of Congress precisely to avoid this outcome.
Since its founding, the U.S. has formally declared war 11 times. While it has legally authorized the use of military force abroad numerous times, Congress issued its last formal declarations of war on June 4, 1942, declaring war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has used armed force abroad 243 times since its last declaration of war. While one could take issue with how instances of armed force are counted in the report, the number would still suggest Congress has abdicated its responsibility.
From a domestic perspective, politicians pay little price for failing to declare war. … Punting responsibility for declaring or authorizing war allows politicians to avoid the appearance of opposing a war that might prove popular if successful, or supporting a war that would be unpopular if unsuccessful. But given its lack of salience, American presidents are unlikely to pay any electoral price for failing to seek a declaration of war or authorizations to use military force, nor are members of Congress likely to pay any price for failing to hold a president accountable for that failure.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by various think tanks.
