652
Opinion of the Court
It might be argued that the assessment of equal treatment in General American was a final step in the Court's Commerce Clause analysis as well, for the discussion followed upon the conclusion that the Louisiana scheme survived Commerce Clause scrutiny "unless it operate[d] to discriminate in some substantial way between" domiciliaries and nondomiciliaries. Id., at 372. But even if that were so, the General American approach to averaging burdens on interstate and intrastate commerce, which Chief Justice Robertson aptly characterized as a rule of " 'close enough for government work,' " 857 S. W. 2d, at 195, never took root in our Commerce Clause jurisprudence. To the extent that General American's Equal Protection Clause discussion ever could have been read as suggesting appropriate Commerce Clause analysis, it has been bypassed by later decisions, and particularly by the "strict rule of equality adopted in Silas Mason," Halliburton, 373 U. S., at 73, a rule that has controlled compensatory tax cases for over half a century. In Silas Mason, Justice Cardozo was explicit in explaining for the Court that the compensatory tax doctrine requires precision to ensure that, upon the "reckoning" of "account[s]," the "sum" on the interstate side of the ledger is "the same" as that on the intrastate side. 300 U. S., at 584. More recently, we have reiterated that strict parity is demanded by the compensatory tax doctrine as we have explained that a compensatory tax leaves a consumer free to make choices "without regard to the tax consequences"; if he purchases within the State he may pay a tax, but if he purchases from outside the State he will pay a "tax of the same amount." Boston Stock Exchange, supra, at 332 (emphasis added).4
4 Of course, in focusing on equality, our cases have addressed the limit of permissible state regulation of interstate commerce. In setting the limit at equality, we have not suggested that lesser burdens on interstate trade are impermissible; that is, we have not demanded equality and nothing but equality in compensatory tax cases.
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