mobile_tax_collector daf My son and I have started a project. Perhaps you could start your own. In your own county, city, state or province. Somewhere, these statistics are supposed to be a matter of public record: The number of traffic citations issued. The number of felony crime arrests made. The number of drug related arrests made. The number of officers working for a government agency in any given year. The number of officers assigned to different divisions in any given year. Finally, any increases in spending on law enforcement. With this information, we hope to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the following: That the government routinely hires more law enforcement officers, not to increase meaningful crime prevention, but to increase government revenues. We further propose that there are a certain number of people at any given time committing minor traffic violations, and that the purpose of hiring more officers is simply to collect fines from a larger percentage of them. Furthermore, on pure principle, we will state that if an activity (such as moderate speeding, or making simple driving mistakes) is so acceptable in our society that it can provide a constantly increasing stream of revenue to the state, that it shouldn't be illegal. At the very least, penalties should be minor for such offenses. By analyzing the above information, we believe a repeated pattern will emerge, in which traffic revenues increase as new law enforcement officers are hired..in most cases, without significant increases in population. Meanwhile, I believe that felony crime rates will be shown to respond primarily to changes in population, unemployment rates and per capita income levels..not newly hired officers. We believe this is because the vast majority of new officers will be deployed on the streets to catch normal, mainly law-abiding citizens..in the act of being human. More to come 070204 ... dafremen death_and_taxes 070204 ... mike "...the purpose of hiring more officers is simply to collect fines from a larger percentage of them." But would this really make sense for the city/state from a costs/benefits perspective? This scheme would be pointless unless it allowed the city/state to turn a profit. The amount of money each cop generates by handing out traffic citations would have to be greater than or equal to the costs of employing the cop (including salary, benefits, etc.) plus the increased administrative costs of handling more traffic cases. Do you have any reason to believe that such a scheme would be profitable for a city/state? “if an activity (such as moderate speeding, or making simple driving mistakes) is so acceptable in our society that it can provide a constantly increasing stream of revenue to the state, that it shouldn't be illegal. At the very least, penalties should be minor for such offenses.” But fines for traffic violations are a deterrent. In other words, the fact that it is illegal to speed is what keeps speeding on our highways generally “moderate.” Also, what’s so bad about generating revenue this way? Real taxes are used to regulate social behavior (i.e., cigarette taxes). So consider this a tax you pay to enjoy the privilege of speeding. And if you don’t want to or can’t afford to pay this “tax,” just don’t speed. 070303 what's it to you? who go blather from