One of the best political cartoons I’ve ever seen was this gem from Glenn McCoy.
It very effectively captures how greedy local governments breed resentment and create conflict by using the law to fleece residents (and it definitely will be featured if I ever do another political cartoonist contest).
This is not a trivial topic. I’ve previously written about how fees, fines and charges can wreck the lives of the less fortunate.
So how do we solve this problem?
a column for the New York Times, argues we should impose much higher fines on rich people.
, inFor people living on the economic margins, even minor offenses can impose crushing financial obligations, trapping them in a cycle of debt and incarceration for nonpayment. …Across America, one-size-fits-all fines are the norm… Other places have saner methods. Finland and Argentina, for example, have tailored fines to income for almost 100 years. The most common model, the “day fine,” scales sanctions to a person’s daily wage. A small offense like littering might cost a fraction of a day’s pay. A serious crime might swallow a month’s paycheck. Everyone pays the same proportion of their income. …Finland…handed a businessman a $67,000 speeding ticket for going 14 miles per hour above the limit.
He argues this is a matter of fairness.
…scaling fines to income is a matter of basic fairness. …The flat fine threatens poor people with financial ruin while letting rich people break the law without meaningful repercussions. Equity requires punishment that is equally felt. …while punishment is supposed to prevent undesirable conduct from happening in the first place, flat fines deter the wealthy less than everyone else. …That’s particularly true in cities like Ferguson that went easy on wealthier residents but treated poor people like cash cows. After all, the city would get more bang for its buck pulling over a rich driver with a blown blinker.
I think Schierenbeck is both right and wrong.
He’s correct that his approach would be more fair. An income-based speeding ticket would be akin to a flat tax – i.e., take the same proportion of everyone’s income. For what it’s worth, I made this argument with regard to traffic offenses back in 2015.
But that approach won’t do anything to help poor people (to be fair, the author doesn’t claim it would).
If we want to protect low-income people from greedy governments, that are several options.
- Have fewer nuisance laws that lead to fines, fees, and charges.
- Have income-based fines, but at a low level for rich and poor alike.
- Perhaps most important, control government spending so politicians have less incentive to grab more money from people.
The bottom line is that I don’t want government to screw over poor people, just as I don’t want government to screw over middle-class people or rich people.
P.S. My point about higher fines on the rich not helping the poor is the same an my argument that class-warfare taxes on upper-income taxpayers don’t do anything to help the less fortunate. Indeed, poor people actually suffer collateral damage because of diminished prosperity.
[…] Here’s an interesting thought: Should traffic ticket fines be based on your tax returns? Apparently some folks are floating this idea. Daniel J. Mitchell has a fascinating take on class warfare and traffic fines. […]
How about people, rich or poor, don’t BREAK the freaking law. How hard is it not to do something? If you are poor and knw a speeding fine would set you way behind, why not drive 8 mph under the limit? Where is all this virtue signaling about protecting poor people when they make bad decisions? It’s like letting people go 10 years early for trafficking kilos of cocaine or heroin. If you know you could get 25 years in prison and do it anyway, what is going to stop you the next time? I need money for my car payment let me deliver this kilo of coke for $1,000.. Sure they are lowering the penalties.
Reblogged this on Boudica BPI Weblog.
Well a graduated tax is the theory with income tax.
How does the jurisdiction issuing the fines determine the income of the violator in order to set the amount of the fine? What is counted–just the income that is reported by an employer to the IRS? Or total income? Are unemployment benefits considered part of income for the purpose of determining fines? Income from rental property? Student loans? Income from rental property?
Will local police departments need to have a staff accountant to deal with the proper determination of each fine? For traffic offenses?
My roommate works in the office of a low income housing project, and I assure you that figuring a person’s total income can be a very complex issue even when the person is being cooperative. Attempting to determine the income of someone who is being obstructive would be cost-prohibitive.
In many cases it would literally cost more to calculate the fine than the amount the offender would end up paying.
While in theory basing pricing on income seems more fair, in practice it means that the working class–people whose income is from a single, long held job–will pay disproportionately. The problem with soaking the rich is that there are too many ways avoid being “rich” on paper.
[…] Class Warfare and Traffic FinesDaniel J Mitchel: basta multe! […]
from “Reason”:
“Chicago Impounds Innocent People’s Cars and Soaks Them in Fines. Now It’s Getting Sued”
byC.J. CIARAMELLA
https://reason.com/2019/04/29/chicago-impounds-innocent-peoples-cars-and-soaks-them-in-fines-now-its-getting-sued/
It seems to me you’re conflating two issues here: how large a fine is fair, and the practice by some governments of using fines as a revenue source.
How large a fine is fair (and whether it should be higher when the defendant is rich) depends in large part why the fine is being imposed. Is it supposed to act as a Pigouvian tax, making the defendant pay the amount of costs he imposes on others? In that case the amount should be the same for all defendants (perhaps with some adjustment to avoid unfairness to those who can’t pay it). But if the fine is pure punishment, then charging the rich more makes sense.
The use of fines as a revenue source, though, is the more important issue. That practice needs to be outlawed and abolished entirely, because it makes the law and its enforcers predators and enemies of the public, and both the police and their prey will take up attitudes that reflect that fact. Which is the first step of giving groups like BLM their start.