June-July Issue
Highway Robbery
by Mark Evans
Does California's fiscal policy force law-enforcement officers to function as highwaymen on the highways of the State? James Sweeney's revealing article "Ticket Quota Costs County $125,000," Santa Rosa Press Democrat, May 22, 1995, indicates that this is so.
According to Sweeney, since 1992 the State of California has been requiring the counties to meet a quota for traffic tickets. This new system directs county governments to send 75% of traffic and criminal fines to Sacramento to help pay for the courts that assess them. In return, the State pays about one-third of the cost of running the courts. The State expects the 58 counties to bring in $80.1 million a year in fines, but the counties are complaining loudly. "It's absolutely ridiculous for the State of California to be demanding that cities and counties write traffic tickets to balance the budget," protested Sonoma County Supervisor Ernie Carpenter: ". . . . The fines and surcharges are too steep for many ordinary people to pay." Sonoma County spends about $17 million a year on its court system. For the 1995 budget year, it received $6.1 million and turned over $5 million in fines and other revenue to the State. The subsidy, however, was projected to drop to a mere $82,000 for the budget year that began July 1, 1995. So even though this new system appears to run in the red, adding to the State budget deficit, it also puts considerable pressure on the counties to generate more revenue issuing and collecting traffic citations. That essentially is why the county officials are complaining.
The Effects of this Policy
This policy has two negative effects. First, it forces local governments to impose more tickets and collect more fines on the public. Second, it adds to the already swollen State debt. As a by-product of the first effect, this policy tends to create more work for the courts and more business for lawyers. It puts the local police in the unenviable position of having to aggressively seek out "violators." And that tends to penalize and artificially criminalize those who are not criminal at all, but simply owners of older and funkier vehicles.
God knows there are plenty of real crimes committed that are not prosecuted. Much white-collar crime goes undiscovered and unreported. That's because the biggest white collar criminals either have , or are powerful lawyers. The rewards-and kickbacks-far outweigh the occasional "fall." According to Tanya Brannan of the Purple Berets, FBI figures state that 95% of the reported cases of rape in Sonoma County never get prosecuted by the D.A.'s office, and the victims or families of the victims often find that the system turns a deaf ear to their pleas.
Why then are the local police being detailed to focus on the streets and highways, and to direct their main attention to traffic offenses? The answer, in a word, is revenue. In the ideal republic, peace officers would be public servants. Today, however, the police have been converted by economic forces beyond their control into being shakedown artists and highwaymen with badges. This is a process difficult for the individual officer to resist because the policy directives and the pressure come from above.
As the owner of a series of older vehicles, I have held a ringside seat in observing the increasing perversion of justice on the highways over the last twenty-five years. I have also witnessed the recent increase in the calculated rapacity of the police under this new policy. Many of the citations being issued are totally frivolous and involve no accident, damaged body, "verified complaint," or tangible "real party of interest." The real party of interest is some intangible body that is holding the whip and pulling strings in Sacramento.
The Economic Basis of this Oppression
This State policy of turning the police out on the highways to raise revenues is a gross violation of the social contract, and makes merchandise of the people. It is a form of involuntary taxation and State-subsidized plunder. It falls most heavily on those who are least able to pay. To understand why this is happening, we must address the second effect of this new policy of the State: underwriting the costs of the county courts. This policy adds to the State budget deficit, which adds to the State debt.
This is akin to the massive expense of building the twenty-two new maximum security prisons in California to warehouse the thousands who will eventually be taken in the net of the "Three Strikes" legislation. It was Governor Pete Wilson who used the opportunity of the Polly Klaas tragedy to ram the "Three Strikes, You're Out" legislation through the State Assembly. I submit that the same people are the beneficiaries of both policies.
Who are the beneficiaries of the Prison Industrial Complex? The industrial contractors who build prisons and supply materials for prison construction; the maintenance, and food-supply corporations that benefit from "servicing" prisons. Peripherally, there is also the prison guard's union, the C.C.P.O.A., which lobbies mightily for the construction of more warehouses of correction. There is also UNICOR, the corporation that oversees the slave-labor jobbing of the detainees. But the main beneficiaries are the bond-holding class.
The bond-holding class, (as distinct from Ma and Pa investors in bonds), are the owners of the preferred stock of commercial banks. Under our current economic system, governments, whether state or federal, are not allowed to create credit out of thin air, as banks can. This is convoluted and backwards because banks originally received their charters from governments, which in the Jeffersonian definition, "receive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Today, the federal government must issue interest-bearing Treasury Securities against, or "as backing for" the "money" whether cash, or credit. The state governments also must float "bond-issues" (interest-bearing debt paper) in order to build highways, schools, and prisons. State bond-issues are purchased by commercial banks, which then supply "credit" (mere computer-blips) at interest to the States.
Thus we discern the existence of a class of people whose interest lies not in seeing the deficit and the debt reduced, but in making it grow so that their quarterly dividends might also grow. This small class of super-rich, the owners of the preferred stock of the commercial banks, are the chief beneficiaries of the incidental oppression that is conducted by federal, state, and local governmental middlemen. Here we can see the outlines of class-war in operation on a subliminal level on our streets.
It is doubtful that one cop in a hundred understands where the push for this ticket-mongering comes from. Most of the public, also informed by the media, see it merely as the revenue-hunger of a greedy bureaucracy. But it is fair to say that it is the by-product of evil policies that are being desperately enforced to prop up the wicked bond-system. The bond-system engenders bondage, economic oppression, and imprisonment for ordinary people.
Killing the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs
Eventually most older, ragged vehicles, owned by poor people-easy prey for ticketing-will be forced off the roads, and middle class owners of newer cars will increasingly feel the pinch from the budget crunch as they find themselves tailgated by cops on the prowl to "make quota." Drivers of older vehicles are already finding it difficult to afford to register their vehicles since the State, under the new system, adds their fines (plus penalties) to the cost of re-registration.
One thing is clear: as the debt load deepens, the State will continue to pressure counties to collect revenue from highways, forcing the police to extort more money from the public by increasing citations. Whether the public will recognize the economic roots of this oppression and do something about it, remains to be seen.
Corporate Welfare $46 Million of your tax dollars has been given to privately owned California wineries to promote the sales of their wine overseas! Gallo Wine Company alone received nearly $5 million in one year!
McDonald's has received more than $1.6 million since 1986 to advertise its fast food products abroad.
Sunsweet Prunes pulled in nearly $23 million, and Sunkist has received more than $76 million since 1986 to promote its oranges in Asia.
$150 million of your tax dollars swells the profits of Getty Oil, Pacific Power and others by allowing them below-market fees to use public lands!
$1.6 billion of your tax dollars over five years funds Small Business Administration (SBA) programs that reach few-if any-small business owners! Fewer than one-half of one percent of small business owners have ever even used SBA or its programs.
$2billion of your tax dollars every year provides cheap electricity through the outmoded Rural Electrification Administration to large utilities cooperatives! While gambling casinos in Las Vegas and plush Colorado ski resorts profit thanks to the government subsidies, millions of families in other parts of the country pay up to 50 percent more on their monthly home electrical bills.
$3.3 billion of your tax dollars in just five years benefits huge timber and forest companies, like Weyerhauser and Georgia Pacific, building forest roads for company use and providing enormous tax breaks for the industry!
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) enjoys an enormous tax subsidy that benefits producers of ethanol, an alcohol-based fuel. ADM has cornered about 80 percent of the ethanol market. Not surprisingly, ADM is a multimillion-dollar campaign contributor. In addition to generous PAC giving to congressional candidates, ADM gave more than $480,000 in soft money to the Democrats and more than $345,000 in soft money to Republicans during the last election alone. Cost to taxpayers: $3.6 billion over five years.
McDonald's, Pillsbury, ConAgr, and Tysons Foods are just some of the giant food corporations and agribusiness powers that benefit from huge corporate welfare programs that cost taxpayers billions every year.
The bottom line, corporate welfare cost to taxpayers: $265 billion over the next five years!If you agree it's an outrage, then help us stop it!
Common Cause,
2030 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036.