Our View - Wednesday

State secrets

Bill would set procedures for court cases

The phrase, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” is often trotted out to justify abridging one principle or another of that august document. Unfortunately, it’s most often used by those who believe the United States should do whatever it takes to defeat the enemy of the day. They don’t seem to understand that tossing away our liberties as a wartime expedient might result in their permanent loss.

One of the most problematic results of the war on terrorism is that President Bush and his followers have invested the Oval Office with whatever authority the president — any president — believes is necessary to prosecute the war. This has resulted in domestic spying programs, American citizens detained for years without charges and other, seemingly un-American activities. Now, the administration is using the “state secrets doctrine” to avoid having to answer difficult questions in court.

That doctrine says the president has virtually unlimited power to declare what is and isn’t a state secret.

It’s important to realize that there are instances in which evidence heard in open court might, indeed, harm national security or reveal the existence of previously unknown intelligence gathering operations. But there is also the possibility — and given this administration’s penchant for secrecy, the probability — that Bush is abusing the principle to avoid having to justify the government’s actions in court.

There have been several cases in which the government’s defense has been simply to invoke the state secrets doctrine. If a judge accepts that at face value, the case is dismissed. Some judges have examined the evidence, then sided with the government, according to legal scholars.

There’s a plan in Congress, though, that could set the stage for more open government, even in cases that might concern national security. Backed by Sens. Arlen Specter and Edward Kennedy, the Classified Information Protection Act sets up procedures to allow judges to review evidence the government would like to keep out of the public record.

According to an Associated Press news story, the bill “lets judges review classified information a criminal defendant wants to use in his defense, but which could compromise national security if it were released publicly. The law allows the court to delete classified passages, substitute summaries of the information, or substitute a statement of facts that the classified information would prove.”

Specter said, “We have the authority to define the state secrets doctrine. I don’t think that the simple assertion of state secrets ought to be the end of the matter.”

This bill would establish criteria for judges to use to ensure cases are treated the same, an important facet of any legitimate justice system. When one judge routinely blindly accepts the assertion that making evidence public would harm national security, and others review the documents before deciding, those seeking redress in court are being treated differently; not exactly equal justice under the law.

Even with bipartisan support, the bill isn’t guaranteed success. There are many in Congress who believe as the president does and are likely to throw up roadblocks to its passage. Even if passes, it would still face Bush’s veto pen. If, by some miracle, the bill makes it into law, it could be challenged in court over who has the authority to declare something a state secret. In any case, this bill will be a good test case for the checks and balances between branches of government.

Thompson gives flat tax new momentum

GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson has proposed a tax reform that one headline called a “flat tax,” although because it has two rates — 10 percent and 25 percent — it is not a true flat-rate system (though it might simplify the tax code). Although the idea of a flatrate tax system, in which all incomes would be taxed at the same rate, and, beyond a basic allowance, there would be no deductions, preferences, or exemptions for politicians to sell to lobbyists, gained considerable popularity in the 1990s, it does not seem to be on a politically serious agenda just now.

That’s too bad.

When professors Alvin Rabushka and Robert Hall wrote their book “The Flat Tax” in 1985 and then-Rep. Richard Armey introduced the idea in the early 1990s, one of the objections was that there was little real-world experience, that the benefits of a flat tax were all theoretical.

Since 1994, however, 14 countries, most of them formerly in the Soviet bloc, including Russia itself, have adopted a version of a flat-rate tax, and all of them have experienced an increase in tax compliance, a stable revenue stream, economic growth and low unemployment. Estonia, which has come closest to enacting a pure flat tax, has seen the most dramatic economic improvement.

Furthermore, the tendency among countries with a flat tax is to reduce the level of taxation. Estonia started at 26 percent, reduced it to 22 percent and plans a further reduction to 18 percent. In Macedonia, a 12 percent flat tax brought in 20 percent more revenue than projected, so they’re reducing the rate to 10 percent.

Montenegro, Mauritius, Albania and the Czech Republic plan to go to a flat tax next year and flat-tax proposals are pending in Hungary, Croatia and Poland.

Countries find the flat tax attractive because it promotes economic growth, gives countries seeking foreign investment a comparative advantage, and provides a steady revenue stream with little tax evasion. Maybe it’s time for the U.S. to revisit the idea. There likely are problems we haven’t considered with such a simple plan for a large nation such as ours, but it’s difficult to believe a flat tax wouldn’t be better than the Rube-Goldberg system we have now.