He cites Texas as having a high execution rate as well as a high murder rate. Texas is hardly the only example, as other states such as Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, and host of others also have high murder rates and high execution rates. (Meanwhile, states like Minnesota, Iowa, Maine, North Dakota, and others, which do not use capital punishment, have much lower murder rates.) One argument for this is that executions have a “brutalization effect” on society, in that they send the message that human life has no inherent sanctity and deliberate killings of people is acceptable.

In reality, I think the impact of executions on the complex issue of homicide is quite negligible in either direction. Write Donohue and Wolfers, in a 2005 article published in the Standford Law Review (PDF link), “We find that the existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile, and even small changes in specifications yield dramatically different results. Our key insight is that the death penalty … is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot be reliably disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors. Our estimates suggest not just ‘reasonable doubt’ about whether there is any deterrent effect of the death penalty, but profound uncertainty. We are confident that the effects are not large, but we remain unsure even of whether they are positive or negative. The difficulty is not just one of statistical significance: whether one measures positive or negative effects of the death penalty is extremely sensitive to very small changes in econometric specifications.” It is quite unlikely, from a psychological standpoint, that executions enter the calculus of an unplanned or even a planned murder.

A report of a survey published in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology in 2009 found an “overwhelming consensus” among “the world’s leading criminologists” that the deterrent effect of capital punishment does not exist. Steven Levitt and others find, “there is little systematic evidence that the execution rate influences crime rates” between 1950 and 1990. There’s a wealth of research in the literature that finds similar conclusions.

But even if we do assume executions deter crime (we shouldn’t), would that be a convincing or valid argument for executions? I think that question ought to be explored as well, and I happen to think the answer to it is no.

Another thing about reducing the taxes is that the point where corps, who are already operating in the US, start looking for other tax solutions will increase. So any who may have switched at this current tax rate this year may not switch.
@Dave: The problem with reducing corp taxes is that when corps choose a place to reduce their taxes in those taxes are not even close to the US taxes (when they move they do not do it half heatedly). So a small reduction won’t bring back that many people or companies who have the wherewithal to jump from country to country.

It seems to be better to prevent some things.

As for gay rights, it is not really the same kind of issue. Imposing morality is something society has always done and it is not really strictly an economic issue. The US is the only developed country that is stuggling with letting people live their personal lives the way they want. Europeans don’t care about how many times their presidents were married — they want the president to be competent and run the country well. It would be considered rude and embarassing for everyone to start probing a person’s personal life, no matter what party you belong to.

The issue is also the uneffectiveness of our ways. Look at the health care data — why does the US spend 1.6 times as much on health care (from the public funds), and still doesn’t have the universal health care as all other developed countries? Spending MORE money and achieving less? Simple inefficiency in approaching the issue.

There are plenty of people who believe that gay marriage is their right, and they are being unfairly “regulated” by those who oppose it. There are others who believe they have the right to eat whatever they want and the government is unfairly “regulating” their ability to consume trans-fats. But the problem is not their eating — it is the government paying for their health care and thus inserting themselves into that decision. When the government is involved in regulating everything, they only give themselves an excuse to get even more involved in even more things (as my example of banning tag on the playground was meant to illustrate).

What one person sees as proper regulation is easily seen by another as a fundamental enfringement on their liberties. The only consistent solution that does not impose your opinion on others is to let people make their own decisions and suffer the consequences for the bad decisions they make. Is that a PERFECT solution? No. Of course people will make mistakes — but you can’t tell me that there aren’t just as many adverse consequences to this regulate-all policy we currently have (as gay people who cannot marry would likely attest to).

Liberty is allowing YOU to choose which specialists you will go to and which market transactions you will make. It is not about doctors deciding what you must have done, or politicians telling you what you can and cannot feed your children. Your conclusion that liberty = anarchy is extreme. You still have laws saying you cannot hurt other people.

Liberty consists in authorizing specialists do their job. Doctors should heal; teachers teach, and politicians do politics. The trick is REPRESENTATIVE democracy. You are represented by professionals that do what they promised (and you elected them for their promises.)

Liberty doesn’t mean that every person is trusted to do the right thing.
There should be regulations; otherwise, I think it’s called anarchy.

“In your view we let people do whatever? I don’t think most people will go far that way.” Ah yes, and that of course leads to schools banning parents from feeding their own children. What about you though? Do you think you’d fall off the rails of you were able to make any decision you wanted to that didn’t directly harm anyone else? I’m sure you think you’d do just fine, right? Yes, we all think we’ll make the right decisions because we’re smart enough or informed enough and we think the right way. But heaven forbid you let your neighbor have the freedom to make choices because they might make the wrong ones. Too bad everyone isn’t as well put together as you. I’m smart but no way do I think I’m smart enough to make all your decisions for you, and I’m certainly not arrogant enough to believe that if everybody did things the way I would want them to be done, the world would be a better place. Liberty is not just for smart people, and being stupid doesn’t mean you give up your constitutional rights.

Democrats also put limits on personal freedoms. And Republicans don’t just stand for economic freedoms– they simply want the rich to pay less in tax so that there would be less social programs. I don’t think the seeming equality goes beyond allowing the poor to be poor and the rich to be rich.

D and R are the same in that they both, in the end, stand for the rich. However, D try ti soften the problems in society (to perhaps avoid big cataclysms like a revolution), while R don’t care about throwing candy to the poor but secure their votes by catering to stupid poor people wanting to own a gun and a ban on abortions.

I don’t think that Rep. Doggett was necessarily wrong in the situation, as it is pretty absurd that a company can dodge taxes just by having mailboxes in a different country. I was actually reading a recent NYT article about how GE didn’t pay a cent in taxes, despite $5.1 profit from U.S. operations alone, and in fact received a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. For a company to make so much money and still receive a negative tax rate, it’s just a little beyond absurd. (Of course the proper response, believes Obama, is to name the CEO the head of a Presidential Council.) There’s good reason to tax business that do business, operate, or otherwise make profit in the U.S. (one of Reagan’s priorities, by the way). Rep. Doggett may not have found the best way to ensure it, but I think that says more about the corporations than it does about Doggett.

(Added by Dave: Benjamin — the fact that there were two companies from Texas in this one town, and both of them were willing to have their executives work from Geneva, seems to me to be a pretty good indication that businesses and the high-paid executives who work for them are willing to do whatever it takes to save billions in taxes.)