What’s Different About Today’s Government Deficit and Debt?
As of today, the U.S. government’s current deficit and debt are indeed currently at unprecedented levels for peacetime—once we account for them appropriately.
1 min read
Quite an interesting post from a blog I hadn't heard of, Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, about how cops are doing massive "click it or ticket" operations--waiting outside of shopping mall parking lots, in some cases--in attempt to deal with state or municipal budget shortfalls.
The blogger comes up with a nice selection examples from across the country, including a California Highway Patrol declaring a "Maximum Enforcement Period" (MEP) for Memorial Day weekend this year, to Texas, where 10% of adults have outstanding warrants, almost all of them for moving violations (see below), and Dallas County, where half of the county's revenue comes from traffic tickets.
But he introduces the topic thus: "Cash strapped cities, states, and municipalities are increasingly looking to raise revenue by issuing tickets instead of cutting expenses." How about raising taxes on the rich, or stimulus money for state budget needs rather than for law enforcement?
Anyhow, it's a great story. Here's a bit about Texas:
Read the rest of the article.
A feature in Car and Driver covered the phenomenon back in February:
More Tickets in Hard Times
Cities searching for revenue look to their police departments as a way to cash in.
Read the rest of the article. (One funny bit was a quote from a motorist who points out that this will have a bad effect on tourism in Michigan "no wonder the state's economy is in the porcelain." I'd never heard that expression—it's a gem.)