Does the Constitution Protect the OWI Suspect?

No. I am willing to argue that no other crime has caused lawmakers and courts of this land to bend the Constitution more than drunk driving. The traditional ideals we have in criminal law of a defendant’s Constitutional protections, such as your right to be free from illegal stop, search, or seizure; your right to fully cross examine your accuser; your right to present a defense; and your right to due process, have been slowly eroded away over the years to the extent that many of these defenses and rights are extinct.

The problem traces its way back to the legislature’s constant bogeyman, the need to protect the public, an important and serious role. Drunk driving has been a danger to society in the United States since there has been alcohol (I would guess long before 1776) and modern automobile transportation (let’s just go back to 1908 and the Model T). Safe to say, it has been a while. What we may think of as the modern attitudes and laws about drunk driving really only stretch back 30 years. In this vein, let’s take a modern look at drunk driving law and policy as it stands today.  

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Not Invited Back

If you ventured into Barnes & Noble this holiday season, you may have been asked to buy a book to be donated to foster children.   The available options are displayed on shelves behind the cashiers: mostly an array of classic picture books for small children, with a smattering of selections for older grade-schoolers.  I think this comports with the image that pops into the average person’s head when the term “foster child” is uttered.  We imagine frightened, small children who have been rescued from violent or deprived homes and placed with earnest, supportive foster parents.  Of course, we know the reality is more complicated, and that there are plenty of older kids and teenagers in foster care, and that the skills and dedication of foster parents vary considerably.  A recent piece in the New York Times shines a spotlight on another aspect of the foster care system: the children who are in the system not because they were plucked away from their parents by Child Protective Services, but because their parents voluntarily surrendered them to foster care.

The article, one in a series of profiles of persons who benefit from the NYT Neediest Cases fund appeal, gives us a snapshot view of Lydia Monserrate, a 21-year-old who recently aged out of foster care. 

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Encouraging the Working Poor to Save for Retirement

Are you saving enough for retirement?  It can be a struggle even for those of us who do not live paycheck to paycheck.  For the working poor, the challenge must seem truly daunting.  Yet, Social Security payouts average only a little more than the poverty line, and benefits seem far more likely to decline than to increase in the future.  For those on the margins of poverty, putting money aside today may be critical to avoid a financial crisis in old age.

Should government step in to promote retirement savings by the working poor?  Vada Lindsey thinks so.  In a new paper on SSRN, she proposes reforms to the earned income tax credit that would push recipients to put a portion of their tax refunds into retirement savings.

Vada’s proposal has many intricacies, but the core features include an automatic allocation of ten percent of EITC benefits to a retirement plan, IRA, or other investment vehicle, plus a matching contribution from the government for additional savings beyond the automatic ten percent.  EITC recipients could opt out, but the default position would be in favor of savings. 

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