by Dick Hall-Sizemore

In a recent post on Bacon’s Rebellion, I cited what I felt was the disproportionate treatment of some undocumented immigrants by the criminal justice system. There was a lot of push back.

Most of the negative commentary centered around the fact that the immigrants were in the United States in violation of federal law. As one person commented, “Either we enforce the law or we don’t.” One commenter went so far to accuse me of inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, by saying, in reference to me, “The only laws that matter are the ones he likes.”

That last comment hit home and resulted in my doing some reflection. The clear gist of these comments are that laws are laws and all should be enforced, whether we like them or not. But, as a society, do we really believe that? Do we really want all laws to be enforced, or just the ones we like? 

As a matter of fact, there are laws on the books that many people routinely break, or broke in the past, with impunity, so much so that they are ignored; have been repealed; or other measures have been taken to achieve their desired result. Here are some examples from the Virginia Code:

Speeding.  Sec. 46.2-870 of the Virginia Code prohibits one from driving a motor vehicle faster than the posted speed. This past Saturday, I was driving to Northern Virginia to visit my daughter and grandchildren. On I-95 from Richmond to Fredericksburg, I drove with my cruise control set at 70, the posted speed limit.  During that stretch of 45 minutes to one hour, I passed exactly one car and maybe one or two trucks. I did not try to count the number of cars and trucks that passed me; I would have lost count if I had tried. I did not see a single State Police patrol car.

If we were serious about wanting that speeding law enforced, we would be clamoring for the Commonwealth to hire more State troopers and have them patrolling that highway at frequent intervals and apprehending anyone who exceeded the legal speed limit. In fact, we do just the opposite. We complain about “speed traps.” The General Assembly even went so far a few years ago to threaten retaliation against a local sheriff who was regarded as being too aggressive in enforcing the speed limit on the Interstate.

Another alternative would be to require the installation of intelligent speed assistance technology in motor vehicles, as recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board. I have not heard much, if any, call for that being done.

Marijuana  It used to be against Virginia law for anyone to possess marijuana. That law was widely violated. One 2015 study showed that about 11 percent of Virginians reported using marijuana during the prior year. Enforcement of the law lagged. I was in a meeting about 10 years ago in which the Commonwealth’s attorney for Roanoke County, a Republican, by the way, reported that his office was no longer prosecuting marijuana possession cases. In 2021, the General Assembly legalized the personal possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Sales tax on internet sales. If a Virginia resident purchases items valued at more than $100 annually on the internet and does not pay sales tax on those items at the time of the purchase, Virginia law requires him or her to include the owed sales tax on his or her personal income tax return. That law was so widely violated that the General Assembly enacted legislation in 2019 requiring remote sellers in Virginia to collect the sales tax when processing sales. The extent of the violation of the law and the loss to the Commonwealth’s treasury is indicated by the Department of Taxation’s estimate that the new law would result in $150 million in additional revenues for the state.

Adultery. It is against the law in Virginia for a married person to have sexual relations with a person not his or her spouse. No comment needed.

Oh, well, some might say, the laws dealing with immigrants are federal laws and we must, of course, enforce federal law. It turns out that the federal government is not all that anxious to enforce all its laws, either.

It is, of course, against the law to cheat on one’s income tax returns. Nevertheless, there is widespread cheating, with the result that the U.S. government does not collect hundreds of billions of dollars annually that it is legally owed. Each year the Internal Revenue Service publishes its “tax gap” report, which analyzes the difference between the “estimated true tax liability” and the “tax paid voluntarily and timely.” Earlier this year, the IRS issued the tax gap report for 2022, the latest year for which there is complete data. It reported a tax gap of $696 billion, of which $539 billion was underreported revenue. Bear in mind, that is just what is known of what was underreported. A former IRS Tax Commissioner estimated the loss at $1 trillion annually.

Legislation enacted under the Biden administration would have provided the IRS an additional $80 billion over 10 years to hire more auditors and update its automated systems. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that this action would have resulted in an additional $200 billion in federal revenue over that time period. Other analyses have projected higher additional revenues.

The Trump administration has proposed not only rolling back the additional funding provided under Biden, but going beyond what was the status before the Inflation Reduction Act. In its budget proposal, the IRS would be cut 31 percent in 2027 relative to 2022, including a 40 percent cut in enforcement. It is estimated that such cuts would result in a net loss of $350 billion in revenue over 10 years.

On the other hand, the Trump administration is really, really anxious to enforce immigration laws. Under the just enacted tax and spending bill, the annual budget for ICE will go from $8 billion to $28 billion, enabling it to hire an additional 10,000 new agents. It will be the highest funded law-enforcement agency in the federal government.

In short, the Trump administration is choosing to cut back on efforts to nail tax cheaters, most of whom are in the upper income ranges, who cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars annually, while going after people, whose only infraction is they came into the country illegally, but otherwise are law-abiding, and who have jobs and pay taxes.

Until we crack down on drivers who race up and down our interstates and tax cheaters who cost our country billions of dollars annually with the same fervor we show in enforcing immigration laws, any admonitions to enforce those immigration laws ring hollow. As my friend said, “Either we enforce the law or we don’t.” It is obvious that, in many cases, we don’t.