Two Court Rulings You Must Know About
In the past two days, there have been two very important court rulings you should know about. The first involves US currency and the second involves municipal bonds.
Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals DC circuit upheld a lower court ruling saying the US Treasury is violating the law by maintaining a currency that is not easily distinguishable to the blind. If not overturned on appeal, this would mean America will have to redesign its currency, probably varying the size of the different bills. While I don’t have a problem with that, I think many Americans would. After all, despite the fact that it costs more to make a penny and nickel than they’re worth, a large majority of Americans still want to keep it.
The second important ruling came from the US Supreme Court. By a 7 to 2 margin, the Justices struck down a lower court ruling that municipal bonds violate interstate commerce. What that means is that muni markets can continue to function as before. The lower ruling had threatened to shut down the widespread practice of states not taxing municipal bond income. Even if you have no munis and no interest in them, this ruling is important because the lower court ruling would have significantly changed bond issuance in total.
That’s all for now on the law front.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:25 am
How do blind people even know we have different denominations of currency? Who told them???