• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Should traffic fines and other fines be based on the income the offender makes?

Should traffic fines and other fines be based on the income one makes?


  • Total voters
    76
If there is no evidence to back up that claim then how can you claim that a person's wealth effects the the appeals they get?

Really jamesrage think about it a poor person represented by a public defender vs. a wealthy man represented by an ivy league educated 800 $ an hour lawyer. Who do you think has the better odds of getting off?
 
Really jamesrage think about it a poor person represented by a public defender vs. a wealthy man represented by an ivy league educated 800 $ an hour lawyer. Who do you think has the better odds of getting off?

Then perhaps we should either limit lawyers or get the accused the same quality of legal defense that the rich has. But it still does not say whether or not the rich murderer gets more appeals for the same type of crime in the same district,court and judge as the poor murderer.
 
Then perhaps we should either limit lawyers or get the accused the same quality of legal defense that the rich has. But it still does not say whether or not the rich murderer gets more appeals for the same type of crime in the same district,court and judge as the poor murderer.

Maybe I did not make it clear. The number of appeals was not my argument. The representation was.
 
Yes, it seems like a good idea. Speeding tickets would then be a more effective deterrent to the rich.

And conversely, less effective to the middle or lower class. How about a flat fine --- instead of being 80 Euro's for the poor, and 800 Euro's for the rich, it's just 800 Euro's all together and motivate everyone who drives to stay within the speed limit.

Oh but the poor are so much more affected by the fine... tough ... don't speed, or, get motivated to make more money to afford the fine. Seems simple enough.
 
If there is no evidence to back up that claim then how can you claim that a person's wealth effects the the appeals they get?

C'mon now......:roll:
The more money you have, the better the weasel you can afford....;)
 
Why does everyone seem to want to punish those who have accumulated wealth? It's as if it's a crime to get educated and to strive to get ahead in life. More and more Americans seem to think it is their right to steal from the rich. They somehow feel entitled to other people's property.
It's those with money who provide jobs, vacations, raises, promotions and healthcare to people with their own money. The rich are the ones that spend money on things like cars, boats, planes, vacations, dining out, fancy clothes etc. that keep people working.
This administration wants to destroy the economy so more and more people will depend on entitlements and will continue to vote them in. The problem is, any so called "right" the govt. gives, can also be taken away. They WANT us to hate the rich, so they will gain more and more power over our lives.
The rich are taxed enough and now you want to punish them even more for a speeding ticket??? Sounds pretty unfair to me.

We're not talking taxes here. We're talking about fines and deterrents for breaking the law. The poor would never see any money from this. Just because you're rich and may help provide jobs does not mean that you should get a free pass when you break a law.
 
Really jamesrage think about it a poor person represented by a public defender vs. a wealthy man represented by an ivy league educated 800 $ an hour lawyer. Who do you think has the better odds of getting off?
The answer to that is for the government to completely take over the legal system; all lawyers could be government employees. Defendants could then be assigned to lawyers by some random means.

.
 
yes it should depend on how much you make, because the fines effect rich people less and the point of a speeding ticket is to stop you from speeding

the system we have now hurts poor people more than rich people, it should be an equal percentage.
Equal justice under law.
 
The whole point behind his scaling factor is because people think rich people will won't care about a few hundred dollar fine and thus are more willing to speed. First off, hundreds of dollars for a fine I think is maybe a bit too excessive. That's a **** load of cash. Secondly, let's just take on assumption the whole premise is true. Well there's still reckless driving, which comes with jail time if done too much; maybe that should be enforced. There are classes and probation and all sorts of annoying, expensive, and time consuming. There's no real point to most of it other than to be annoying, expensive, and time consuming. Now I think maybe rich people have an easier time getting out of it because they can hire fancy lawyers for any trouble they get into and by doing so escape some of the punishment that is levied on the rest of us. Maybe we should just start holding them to the same crap everyone else has to do.

I don't like the idea of scaling tickets with income, to me that seems like nothing more than a fundraising method for the State.
 
More attempts at class envy. Poor people don't benefit when rich pay more do they?
 
"one is getting fined 0.5% of his income while the other is getting fined 0.05% of his income. Obviously the person being fined 0.5% of his income had a harsher penalty than the person being fined 0.05% of his income. "


I'm honestly not seeing the mistake.


$100 fine for person making 20K = 0.5%
$100 fine for person making 200K = 0.05%

A fine of 0.5% is harsher penalty than a fine of .05%.
 
The problem with fines is that for those with enough money to ignore them, they fail to act as a deterrent. However, speeding tickets also lead to license suspension, so I would say that income based fines aren't required.

Exactly.

I don't think that a suspension of a license is that much a detterent towards billionaires either. All they have to do is hire someone to drive them around.

But then they're not driving any more, which is the optimal outcome. If they force their driver to speed, then the driver will lose his license as well.

Not if you charged the same percentage. For example you make speeding 1% of income,so someone making 20,000 pays $200 and someone making $2,000,000 pays $20,000. We live in a country that has a graduated income tax system and as far as I know no judge has struck it down, so surely a flat percentage fine would be deemed constitutional even if some liberal jacked it up to a graduated percentage system.

Income taxes are unconstitutional/illegal?

Income taxes are constitutional because there is an amendment allowing for their imposition. Fines are punitive measures handed out by the courts. It's a lot more questionable to base the punitive punishment that people receive on an entirely unrelated factor. Unless there is some evidence that speeding is related to income, I don't think this would work.

The $6.00 speeding ticket my girlfriend's rich cousin in Costa Rica got meant nothing to him but a good laugh. It sure didn't slow him down!

Does he live there? Do they have a point system?
 
Not if you charged the same percentage. For example you make speeding 1% of income,so someone making 20,000 pays $200 and someone making $2,000,000 pays $20,000. We live in a country that has a graduated income tax system and as far as I know no judge has struck it down, so surely a flat percentage fine would be deemed constitutional even if some liberal jacked it up to a graduated percentage system.

While I would be completely in favor of a fine as a percentage of income if it were legal...I'm not sure it's legally comparable to the graduated income tax. For one thing, the Constitution specifically authorizes an income tax. Another of the arguments in support of a graduated income tax is that the PEOPLE aren't being treated differently...just the INCOME over a certain amount is treated differently (e.g. Bill Gates pays the same percentage on his first $50K of income as I do). I'm not sure that's comparable to a fine for a traffic offense, as that would pretty clearly fall under the "equal protection under the law" category.

But maybe I'm wrong about this...does anyone know if any US states have tried to fine people as a percentage of their income? I'd be interested to see if it could pass constitutional scrutiny.
 
Income taxes are constitutional because there is an amendment allowing for their imposition. Fines are punitive measures handed out by the courts. It's a lot more questionable to base the punitive punishment that people receive on an entirely unrelated factor. Unless there is some evidence that speeding is related to income, I don't think this would work.

The fact that you would even say the bolded statement makes me wonder whether or not you even understand the argument.

For one thing, it's not just speeding; the question is whether or not all fines should be like this.

That's because income is not, as you said, an "unrelated factor". It is very relevant to what type of punishment you get for any sort of crime. Punishment should be the same for any crime regardless of wealth - and unless you base fines on income, that is not the case. See Tucker's post for an explanation of why. Rich people have to give less of what they have than poor people.


As for the Constitutional argument - that argument, even if it were valid (and I'm not so sure that it is, considering that a fine could be considered a tax) applies to the Federal government. Speeding, as well as most things which you get a fine for, is not a Federal crime.
 
Income- or wealth-related fines are the most fair. The idea of a fine is that you have to suffer a certain amount of discomfort for transgressing the law. If the size of the fine is determined by your financial means the fine hits you equally hard whether you are rich or poor. This is the most fair system.

And this is not cruel to the rich. All that is supposed is that they will receive the same punishment as everybody else. If they don't want to pay the fines they can just keep themselves within the limits of the law - simple as that.
 
We can't have millions of people driving around who are nonpunishable because of their wealth. People who get no incentive to drive safely from small dollar amount fines and penalties. Drivers have all assorted incomes so there must be a penalty based on their income. It must mean something to them.
 
The fact that you would even say the bolded statement makes me wonder whether or not you even understand the argument.

For one thing, it's not just speeding; the question is whether or not all fines should be like this.

And I don't see why it should be any different.

That's because income is not, as you said, an "unrelated factor". It is very relevant to what type of punishment you get for any sort of crime.

How exactly is it related? Is the punishment for murder 10-15 for rich people but 25-30 for poor people?

Punishment should be the same for any crime regardless of wealth - and unless you base fines on income, that is not the case. See Tucker's post for an explanation of why. Rich people have to give less of what they have than poor people.

Again, that's one way to look at how fines work. You could also look at it in terms of total amount, which I think is more logical, administratively simpler, and historically accepted.

As for the Constitutional argument - that argument, even if it were valid (and I'm not so sure that it is, considering that a fine could be considered a tax) applies to the Federal government. Speeding, as well as most things which you get a fine for, is not a Federal crime.

As you note, we're talking about all fines, not just speeding. I can think of a dozen federal fines off the top of my head - environmental fines, SEC fines, etc.

We can't have millions of people driving around who are nonpunishable because of their wealth.

We've had a system like this for the past 90 years and it seems to work just fine. Do all rich people drive 150mph wherever they go, killing children left and right?
 
Most of this cretin's fine was punishment for perjury. He claimed to have diplomatic immunity at his first hearing. He didn't.
 
Do we give out tickets on the basis that they are a deterrent for speeding or do we give them out in order to make people pay for the threat that they are causing to other people?
 
Maybe we should give old people shorter jail sentences, since they have less time to live.
 
Isn't this a form of profiling?

No.

Profiling happens before a crime is committed. You can't get pulled on suspicion of speeding, just speeding.

And profiling involves some characteristic of the driver that's obvious. It's hard to target high income drivers. Perhaps they are targeting Lexus's instead of beat up Volkswagens?
 
Should a punishment for murder depend on how much money I make? Should the punishment for theft depend on how much money I make? Why should this be any different?

Murder and theft both harm another person, so the punishments have an element of retribution. A speeding ticket, by contrast, is purely punitive, designed only to be a deterrent, and in no way meant to reimburse someone else for a wrong done to him.

The risk of a prison sentence will be an approximately equal deterrent for all citizens (except for some of the homeless ones). But the same monetary fine can be devastating for some and negligible for others. If the point of the punishment is deterrence, then it should be issued according to the offender's ability to absorb it, not just according to the offense.
 
Back
Top Bottom