Why? What's so bad about forcing us to re-evaluate the reasons why given laws are on the books?

Plenty of laws are relevant only to a specific point in time, but they rarely, if ever, get repealed.

Take the US Chicken Tax. It was put in place in the 60s to deal with economic concerns with France and West Germany at the time (which no longer exists as such!). Why shouldn't it have been given an expiration date? Instead, it remains in perpetuity, with its provisions twisted every few years to suit the interests of auto industry lobbyists. This is perverse.

Some laws, like that one, should be enacted with an expiration date. Some laws even are - e.g. a lot of the post-9/11 surveillance state laws need periodic reauthorization. Plenty of other taxes are enacted as temporary, too, despite how routinely they're extended.

But not all laws should expire. Having, say, the crime of murder expire would be quite unhelpful.

> But not all laws should expire. Having, say, the crime of murder expire would be quite unhelpful.

I'm pretty sure that laws like that one would be renewed before expiration anyway -- and the current context would allow re-evaluation of penalty as well, which might be something useful to reconsider every couple of decades.

But that renewal provides a hook for legislators to attach all kinds of distasteful things to it.

It would be an excuse for political and legislative brinkmanship on a schedule. They can always make changes to the details without a clock adding artificial urgency. It's clear it's the kind of law we want on the books, and to have a penalty on the books, indefinitely. Unlike, say, the chicken tax.

One question then, is whether laws are generally more like murder, or more like the chicken tax. I don't know, but I suspect there are more chicken-tax-like laws by a considerable margin.

The current default is accretion. There is no end to it. We will drown in laws.

I disagree. Of all ideas, I think this is his best one.

It's a great idea until "no murder" gets held up by the minority party to win leverage on some other issue. There'd always be some critical law to play chicken with.