Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Neil H. Buchanan

Emeritus James J. Freeland Eminent Scholar Chair in Taxation
Emeritus Professor of Law

Expertise

Debt Ceiling  • Deficits and National Debt  • Democracy and the Rule of Law  • Distributive Justice  • Limits of Economic Analysis  • Social Security  • Tax Policy  • 

About

Neil H. Buchanan, B.A. (Vassar College), A.M. in Economics (Harvard), Ph.D. in Economics (Harvard), J.D. (University of Michigan), Ph.D. in Laws (Monash), is an economist and legal scholar. He is the James J. Freeland Eminent Chair in Taxation and Professor of Law emeritus. He has taught economics at Harvard, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere; and he has taught law at The George Washington University, New York University, and Rutgers University. He is an internationally recognized scholar who speaks frequently at universities around the world and has published widely in both academic journals and major newspapers and magazines. His core areas of research are tax policy, intergenerational justice, retirement security, critical perspectives on economics as applied to law, and the future of democracy in the US and the world. In 2024-25, he is a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, and in October 2024, he will be the Sutherland Fellow at University College Dublin (Ireland).

Education

M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University, Economics
Ph.D, Monash University, Laws
J.D., University of Michigan
B.A., Vassar College, Economics

Teaching and Scholarship

Intergenerational Justice
Interaction of Economic Issues and Constitutional Law
Social Security
Federal Deficits and Debt

Publications

Legal and Economic Commentary

Books

  • The Debt Ceiling Disasters: How the Republicans Created an Unnecessary Constitutional Crisis and How the Democrats Can Fight Back (2013).

Articles and Chapters in Books

  • Feminism, Theocracy, and Righteous Anger: Sherry Colb Unbound, 110 Cornell L. Rev. ___ (2024)
  • Disability Benefits and Administrative Vulnerability: Lessons for Canada from the US’s Social Security System, 61 Osgoode Hall Law Journal __ (2024)
  • Justice Delayed: Government Officials’ Authority to Wind Down Constitutional Violations, 103 Boston U. L. Rev. 2065 (2023) (with Michael C. Dorf)
  • A Tale of Two Formalisms: How Law and Economics Mirrors Originalism and Textualism, 106 Cornell L. Rev. 591 (2021) (with Michael C. Dorf).
  • Sustainable Tax Policy Through the Lens of Intergenerational Justice, 23 Fla. Tax Rev. 499 (2020).
  • White Privilege: What It Is, What It Is Not, and How It Shapes American Discussions of Policing and Historical Iconography, 31 U. Fla. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 99 (2020).
  • Social Security Is Fair to All Generations: Demystifying the Trust Fund, Solvency, and the Promise to Younger Americans, 27 Cornell J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 237 (2017).
  • Situational Ethics and Veganism, Boston U. L. Rev. Annex (Mar. 26, 2017), www.bu.edu/bulawreview/buchanan/.
  • (With Michael C. Dorf.)  Don’t End or Audit the Fed: Central Bank Independence in an Age of Austerity, 102 Cornell L. Rev. 1 (2016).
  • An Odd Remedy that Does Not Solve the Supposed Problem: Commentary on Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne et ux., Geo. Wash. L. Rev. On the Docket (May 23, 2015), http://www.gwlr.org/comptroller-of-the-treasury-of-maryland-v-wynne/.
  • (With Dorf, Michael C.) Borrowing by Any Other Name: Why Presidential ‘Spending Cuts’ Would Still Exceed the Debt Ceiling, 114 Colum.L. Rev. Sidebar 44 (Mar. 11, 2014), http://columbialawreview.org/content/borrowing-by-any-other-name-why-presidential-spending-cuts-would-still-exceed-the-debt-ceiling/.
  • Owaru Kotono Nai Saimu Jogen No Kiki (The Never-Ending Debt Ceiling Crisis), Sozei Kenkyu (Tax Studies), April 2014.
  • (With Dorf, Michael C.) Bargaining in the Shadow of the Debt Ceiling: When Negotiating Over Spending and Tax Laws, Congress and the President Should Consider the Debt Ceiling a Dead letter, 113 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 32 (Mar. 5, 2013),  http://columbialawreview.org/content/bargaining-in-the-shadow-of-the-debt-ceiling-when-negotiating-over-spending-and-tax-laws-congress-and-the-president-should-consider-the-debt-ceiling-a-dead-letter/.
  • The Role of Economics in Tax Scholarship, in Beyond Economic Efficiency in United States Tax Law 11 (David A. Brennen, Karen B. Brown and Darryll K. Jones eds., 2013).
  • (With Dorf, Michael C.) How to Choose the Least Unconstitutional Option: Lessons for the President (and Others) from the Debt Ceiling Standoff, 112 Colum. L. Rev. 1175 (2012).
  • (With Dorf, Michael C.) Nullifying the Debt Ceiling Threat Once and For All: Why the President Should Embrace the Least Unconstitutional Option, 112 Colum. L. Rev. Sidebar 237 (Dec. 21, 2012), https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2017&context=facpub.
  • Why We Should Never Pay Down the National Debt, 50 U. Louisville L. Rev. 683 (2012).
  • Good Deficits: Protecting the Public Interest from Deficit Hysteria, 31 Va. Tax Rev. 75 (2011).
  • What Kind of Environment Do We Owe Future Generations?, 15 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 339 (2011).
  • Medicare Meets Mephistopheles: Health Care, Government Spending, and Economic Prosperity,” 29 Miss. C. L. Rev. 319 (2010).
  • Four Out of Four Panelists Agree: U.S. Fiscal Policy Does Not Cheat Future Generations, 77 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1402 (2009).
  • ‘Generational Theft’? U.S. Fiscal Policy Does Not Cheat Future Generations, 52 Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs 44 (Sept.-Oct. 2009).
  • What Do We Owe Future Generations?, 77 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1237 (2009).
  • How Realistic Is the Supply/Demand Equilibrium Story: A Simple Demonstration of False Trading and Its Implications for Market Equilibrium, 31 J. Socio-Econ. 400 (2008).
  • Social Security and Government Deficits: When Should We Worry?, 92 Cornell L. Rev. 257 (2007).
  • Is It Sometimes Good to Run Budget Deficits? If So, Should We Admit It Out Loud?, 26 Va. Tax Rev. 325 (2006).
  • The Case Against Income Averaging, 25 Va. Tax Rev. 1151 (2006).
  • The JEC’s Estate Tax Report: Myths and Legends, 111 Tax Notes 1133 (June 5, 2006).
  • Playing with Fire: Feminist Legal Theorists and the Tools of Economics, in Feminism Confronts Homo Economicus: Gender, Law, and Society 61 (Martha Fineman & Terence Dougherty eds., 2005).
  • Social Security, Generational Justice, and Long-Term Deficits, 58 Tax L. Rev. 275 (2005).
  • The Uses of the Concept of Efficiency in Tax Analysis, in Proceedings National Tax Association, Tax Institute of America 441.
  • A User’s Guide to Proposals to Replace the U.S. Tax System and Strangle Fiscal Policy.” 31 J. Econ. Issues 505 (1999).
  • Taxes, Saving, and Macroeconomics,  31 J. Econ. Issues 59 (1999).
  • Comparing Alternative Methods of Adjusting U.S. Federal Fiscal Deficits for Cyclical and Price Effects.

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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.