4 ms·

Except this kind of interstate warfare is exactly what is happening now, with Amazon pitting city against city in an attempt to extract tax breaks.

• paulmd 9y ago
  Yup, the Constitution does not have a good mechanism for dealing with states racing-to-the-bottom, either in taxes or regulatory climate. This isn't really the kind of thing that you can regulate Federally, either, under the Constitution. The Constitution gets some things right, but it also gets a lot of things wrong. That's why the whole "living document" part is so important.
  • 18pfsmt 9y ago
    The whole idea that the Constitution is a living document is a myth. There is a process by which we can alter the Constitution, but it isn't by reinterpretation. The federal government is meant to be constrained in its powers in order to assure the liberties of the citizens.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The whole idea that the Constitution is a living document is a myth No, it's not; it's a fundamental inescapable truth of all documents, because meaning is dialogue between the author and the audience, change the audience and the meaning changes.
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Yup, the Constitution does not have a good mechanism for dealing with states racing-to-the-bottom, either in taxes or regulatory climate. This isn't really the kind of thing that you can regulate Federally, either, under the Constitution. Sure you can; race-to-the-bottom among states only occurs because of the substantial nexus with real interstate and foreign commerce (not a distant potential impact), so even narrow views of the interstate commerce power would give Congress the authority to regulate to control it.