Nobody’s PERFect
by Primo Encarnación
I once became an elected official in the town where I grew up. I don’t know how things work, elsewhere, but all this anti-tax nutjobbery severely hurt us through time. It did, as its proponents promise, encourage creativity in stretching our ever-shrinking dollars, but not in good ways. Instead of re-paving streets on a schedule that would take 16 years to do the whole town, we extended that to 22 years. We used referenda to float bond issues, which sometimes lost, resulting in crumbling schools and “temporary” classrooms in sweltering trailers. We entered into an agreement with those infamous “red light” camera folks, whereby we got free cameras and part of the revenue – only part! – there from.
All these deals with various devils bought us some measure of annual budget comfort, but shutting off the spigots and mandating balanced budgets left us with zero governing comfort as our rainy day fund balances disappeared.
This was partly ameliorated where I lived by the real-estate boom of the 1990s, but consider the position today of all the towns that rely on property taxes to provide basic services in the wake of the bust. And those who rely on sales or income taxes as real incomes fall among the taxees. There’s no margin of error. Once the economy takes one of the dives that are inevitable in the boom-and-bust cycle of unregulated supply-siderism, then the crippled town budgets fall to pieces, as do the towns. It’s the vicious cycle of Reagonomics, which deserves burial alongside himself.
Police departments, too, were faced with the same difficulty of providing services while making ends meet. Homeland security provided a great way for police departments to cowboy up on items like body armor, armored cars and armor-piercing bullets. But when it came to paying actual salaries, putting cops in cars, on foot, on bikes or even on horses in trouble-prone areas, the ounce of prevention was more expensive than the shit-ton of cure that a SWAT visit entails.
Which is why it comes as no surprise that the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) came to the same conclusion. Their recently released report about St. Louis County (think Ferguson) says an “inappropriate and misguided mission has been thrust upon the police in many communities: the need to generate large sums of revenue for their city governments.”
Which surprised PERF, apparently. They were shocked, SHOCKED, I say! to find out of control law enforcement balancing city books on the backs of the poor (like everyone else in the oligarchy.) “PERF has never before encountered what we have seen in parts of St. Louis County.”
Then they haven’t been looking.
Primo Encarnación, who here hasn’t been shaken down by the cops? The small towns between Reno and Las Vegas have some of the worst traffic pits in the country. Although I did meet one sweet lady with a great sense of humor. She responded to my wisecracking about being there to make a donation of the PBA by reducing the speeding ticket to some minor non-moving violation. Saved me a couple of hundred.
It’s the poor who really suffer. Can’t afford the initial fine? Keep tacking on fines and penalties, until you do the time. Bennie the Mooch seems benevolent by comparison.
1The police force as revenue enhancement notion has been in full force in a little town near where I live. Because it is incorporated as a “borough” it is allowed to have its own police force and enforce its own laws. Unincorporated areas may enforce local ordinance by a civil proceeding in the district magistrate court — the same one that was used to charge me with allowing my child to be illegally absent from school when we went to the Smithsonian without prior permission.
A few years back, I happened to be in a local government meeting where the chief of police bragged that his borough had not had to raise taxes since they got their own police force and set up the speed traps that rake it in on football weekends when unsuspecting drivers on their way to watch the PSU team play go just a little more than 35 miles an hour as they pass through the town. But they are equal-opportunity speed trap operators and don’t give their own citizens any breaks either. One time Charlie B. was a little heavy on the gas and got a ticket so he put up a sign on his property at one side of town that warned “Charlie Sez: Speed Trap Ahead” and on the other side of town, at his place of business he would park a little tractor out by the road with flashing yellow lights and a warning sign when he knew that the police were trapping ahead. But I think he died while we were in Texas because when we got back here, the signs were gone.
2It’s not just small towns. DC has added 6 more speed cameras to go with the untold number already in place. They bring in millions each year. HOWEVER, we are talking about a city with lots of pedestrians (ahem!) and a lot of commuters. We can’t tax income where it is earned–unlike everywhere else in the county–you pay your income taxes to the state where you live, not where you work. The number of speeders and red-light runners has been considerably reduced in the interim.
So, there is that.
3Columbus just shuttered it’s red light system after a new state law passed saying there needed to be a cop at each intersection there was a camera. Over the years it dragged in $10 million for the city, at just 38 intersections. “The city used that money to buy cruisers, pay overtime for special summer patrols and buy laptops and other tools.”
Columbus, usually a paragon of liberalism, is fighting the new law. Of course. They claim that it reduces T-bone accidents, and the data suggest it might, at that. But couldn’t it be just as effective at, say, $33 a pop instead of the $100 they socked you with for rolling thru a red light right turn?
And then there’s tiny Brice, OH, mere minutes from daCasa. The only reason they don’t have any red light cameras is that they don’t have any red lights. The annual budget for this 114-person blister on Columbus’ eastern backside amounts to $135,000 – 3/4 of which the mayor admits is derived from usurious traffic fines. When a new law ended “mayor’s courts” in Ohio in order to kill speed traps, the enterprising folks in Brice made all the tickets civil violations. Top fine among the civil violations? One thousand, five hundred American dollars.
And zero sense.
4“It’s the vicious cycle of Reagonomics, which deserves burial alongside himself.” Hell ya.
5Thanks but missing the point. it’s a shame and needs to be promoted but NOBODY except Warren and Sanders are explaining the many benefits of fair taxes and and a strong Democratic government in a Civil society. Nobody.
6F$$K Privatization.
Sounds like the cops want to get out of being the fund raisers, but exactly how do you do that when there is a very vocal faction (peatardiers) who have the local government super glued to fear of what the peatardiers just might do next. Its like living with yer bipolar brother in law who won’t take his meds.
7lex, I’d be all for returning to a progressive income tax. The rates set in the Eisenhower years worked to pay off WWII, so maybe would need a little tweaking, since we are still paying for Dubya’s 2 off-budget wars.
With you on “privatization,” too. Schools need to be public, while for profit prisons and medicare are draconian, at best.
If Senator Sanders wins the nomination, his selection of a running mate will be interesting. Senator Warren has no interest in leaving the Senate for the headache palace. Think if anyone offered Sec/Sen Kerry a job requiring more air travel, he’d shoot them. Rich Whitney would be an excellent choice as would Mayor Rawlings-Blake or DA Mosby. But whoever he choose, expect that person to be a pleasant surprise.
In the meantime, I vote with Primo Encarnación on the ugly surprise taxes imposed for the ‘privilege’ of driving on our taxpayer roads, such as they are.
8The highway between Silverdale and Bremerton, Washington rakes in the dough too with it’s speed trap. They love out of state drivers, and one of the first things they ask is if you’re just visiting the state. Very convenient since there’s no risk of you disputing the ticket. Every other Alaskan I have asked has been ticketed there.
9Thank PMK! Agree and appreciate the insight and feedback.
10It isn’t just the initial fines that are a problem for the poor. If they miss a payment then penalties and fees may be added on. The debt may be turned over to a for-profit company that applies any amount paid first to its own fees, leaving little or nothing to pay off the debt. In some cases failure to pay can be treated as a crime. We’ve recreated debtors’ prisons. Charles Dickens would not be proud. People from our era should be deeply ashamed.
11Between shaking people down for traffic violations and filling the for-profit prison system, it seems odd to call these people “police”. Rather, perhaps we should return the phrase “revenuers” to use.
There is a city nearby that specializes in traffic enforcement quotas, I’ve been told. I once got caught, which was fine since I was speeding. The part I didn’t like was how the officer lept into the roadway and drew down on me with what I thought was a pistol; not freaking cool.
12When I was a teen Selma was the notorious speed trap on 35 in Texas. But somewhere along the way the State started to take a higher percentage of speed fines such that it doesn’t make sense for speed traps to exist any longer.
OTOH in my little wet hometown the $35 cash escrow (before 1977 when I moved away) for Public Intox helped pave roads, pay for police cars and etc. Of course there was nothing to tax there so income had to come from elsewhere. The somewhere was the drinkers in town.
13Here in Charlotte County Florida our local Sheriff’s Department has a MRAP an armored military vehicle in case some local person rolls through a stop sign or just maybe has an over size fish. Check out Charlotte Harbor it’s an awesome estuary and not a major crime zone!
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