And I thought only philosophers played games with “general” descriptions like this. Via Think Progress:
And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments, most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, introduced an amendment (Hatch F7 [pdf]) to “add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name the [sic] begins with the letter ‘U.’”
{ 16 comments }
Andrew Smith 09.22.09 at 3:13 am
The US has an extraordinarily low-quality federal government.
lemuel pitkin 09.22.09 at 4:20 am
New York State has a bunch of laws that apply to cities with populations over 1 million. Sure, there’s only one at present, but maybe they are just planning for the coming Yonkers boom…
marcel 09.22.09 at 11:20 am
Like, NY, Michigan, too, has or used to have laws similar to the ones LPitkin mentions. The only thing is that these laws outlasted the presence of any cities that satisfied the condition.
Salient 09.22.09 at 11:46 am
I can’t figure out whether to be relieved or disappointed that Hatch didn’t try to actually name this the Edward Kennedy Memorial Amendment.
Michael Drake 09.22.09 at 2:53 pm
That’s what I call a grU amendment.
LizardBreath 09.22.09 at 3:54 pm
I believe these are pretty common, and often not nearly this transparent — like, some provision will be passed affecting corporate taxpayers with taxable revenues between X and Y, incorporated in the state of North Columbia, with features Z and W. It narrows down the provision to one company, but figuring out who, if you don’t already know, is difficult.
Jeff 09.22.09 at 4:02 pm
My amendment to the Dept. of Defense appropriations bill: “Funds appropriated under this Act may not be used to support activities or hostilities against any State or territory with the letter ‘I’ (i) in its English name.”
Kenny Easwaran 09.22.09 at 5:37 pm
Jeff – it seems that might result in Congress officially renaming certain countries as “Yraq” and “Yran”. They would be nice additions to FYROM as countries whose English name was legislated by a different country.
Jim 09.22.09 at 8:37 pm
If the amendment’s statutory version turns out to be as loosely worded as the description in the summary, any state can get the tax relief by adopting “a name” that begins with the letter U. I hope my state picks an interesting statutory alias like “Ulysses” or “Ursula.”
Carol Polk 09.22.09 at 11:48 pm
#7, would you amend your amendment to say that such funds may not be used to support activities or hostilities against OR ON BEHALF OF any state” with that I in its English name?
Billikin 09.23.09 at 12:59 am
Uruguay! :)
Richard J 09.23.09 at 11:01 am
like, some provision will be passed affecting corporate taxpayers with taxable revenues between X and Y, incorporated in the state of North Columbia, with features Z and W.
Fairly uncommon in British tax law, as far as I can tell. There’s anti-avoidance legislation, which is fairly tightly drafted to catch specific marketed schemes, but the only case that leaps to mind is how exactly the windfall tax on privatised utilities was actually enacted.
Actually, wait, Royal Dutch Shell is fairly explicitly referred to in the Dutch-UK tax treaty.
This is not an exciting post, I appreciate.
Jeff 09.23.09 at 3:48 pm
Yes, Carol and Kenny may have identified critical loopholes in my somewhat naive draft. Is that “on behalf of” intended to cover client governments, or to refer to the “United States”? Clever.
J (in Undiana)
david s 09.23.09 at 7:37 pm
I understand Senator Hatch’s amendment was offered in protest, if not in jest, reacting to another–presumably serious–amendment that provided some sort of exemptions or lower tax rates for the “17 states with the highest per capita health expenditures” or some such. See also Senator Reid’s comments that nothing will pass without Medicaid changes that are favorable to Nevada.
Salient 09.24.09 at 4:18 pm
I’d bet even money that Hatch will later count this amendment in his next election cycle ad campaign when summing up how many times he has “written or co-sponsored legislation that would provide tax relief to Utah citizens.”
Phillip Hallam-Baker 09.26.09 at 3:22 pm
Ah but if the Hatch amendment passes, the Democrats will add one that states ‘For the purposes of this act the state of Utah will be known as “The State of Utah” and its initial letter shall be considered to be the letter ‘T’.
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