This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 21st, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Supreme Court today affirmed that unions cannot simply take money from non-union members and then use those funds to advance

certain political activity.

Trevor Burris, a legal associate at the Cato Institute, comments on the case of Knox v.

SEU.

Everyone in this case points to Sunstein and Thaler on Libertarian paternalism

and talking about this idea of consent.

And I think a lot of people try to come up with a good proxy for consent

when it comes to opting into a system in which your union dues will be used

for political activity or opting out of a system in which your union dues or payments that you make to your union will be used for a political activity.

What does this case say about that notion of consent?

Well, it says pretty clearly that opting in is pretty much required,

at least in this one area.

Didn't say the opting in is required totally, but just in this one area. Didn't say the opting in is required totally,

but just in this one area.

And so on that Sunstein-Thaler kind of nudge thing,

well we all know this, right?

We know that that's why you don't have to write one check to the IRS every year.

They take it out slowly over the course of the year because otherwise you wouldn't be able

to tax people as much.

There's all these little things that work that way and for a long time having people

only opting out of political advocacy.

...