IS TIM KAINE OUT OF HIS SCULL?

Kaine dancing to a bad GOP tune, seen here with fiddlers Griffith & Howell

I think I first heard about the outrageous new traffic fines Virginia just instituted-- up to $3,000-- from Ed Schultz on Air America a few weeks ago. I was concerned because I'm spending a week in Falls Church soon and because... Virginia does have a Democratic governor of sorts and this kind of regressive taxation may be a Republican wet dream come true, but is the worst thing a Democrat can do.

This morning's Washington Post informed us that this horrendous scheme is already a disaster in Michigan and New Jersey. Not that that stopped Virginia.

The licenses of tens of thousands of motorists in New Jersey and Michigan have been suspended because they cannot afford the fees, and little evidence has emerged that such fines improve highway safety, according to state officials and studies.

Numerous lawmakers, judges and social activists in both states have sought to either repeal the fees or make major changes in how they are collected. But once the programs are implemented, they are difficult to get rid of, because state lawmakers are unwilling to give up the revenue they raise, judges and lawmakers said.

"I think it is a very destructive piece of legislation that is designed primarily for revenue purposes and is disguised as a highway safety measure," said William C. Buhl, a Circuit Court judge in Van Buren County, Mich. "In my opinion, it increases the dangers on the highways because it creates an enormous, growing pool of unlicensed motorists."

Demonizing government and taxes and then making people think they are entitled to low taxes, regardless of what services they want/need/expect, inevitably leads to malfunctioning societies. Virginia, for example, had no money for highway upkeep. So what do you think the overwhelmingly Republican state legislature did? Certainly not raise taxes-- only Democrats do that. They raised traffic fines into the thousands of dollars. If a rich person gets a $1,000 fine, they get pissed off and pay it and grumble. If a poor person gets a $1,000 fine, it could wreck his or her life.

In 1983, New Jersey became the first state to assess the fees, which range from $300 to $4,500 over three years and pay for insurance for those unable to obtain coverage. The $100 million raised annually goes into the state's general fund.

New Jersey issues about 800,000 license suspension notices a year, a quarter of which result when people are unable to pay the surcharges, according to the New Jersey Treasury Department. A 2001 study by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice found that the suspensions were creating a permanent underclass.

...The Michigan fees are supposed to raise $80 million to $100 million annually. But the state has a collection rate of 40 percent because so many people cannot afford to pay them, state officials said.

I can't believe Kaine even signed this idiotic bill but now he's defending it as more and more legislators from both parties want to scrap it. Democratic governors in New Jersey and Michigan can't get rid of the odious regressive tax because it is an integral part of each state's finance system. According to Bob Bushnell, Commonwealth Attorney for Henry County, "The way this thing works out, it is going to have an absolutely ruinous effect on financially challenged Virginians. To my knowledge, no one from the police was consulted. We weren't consulted. The court clerks weren't consulted. Had it come up, I think the General Assembly would have been aware of all kinds of concerns from Virginians about the unanticipated downside to this program."