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Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, the man who’s mayoral
campaign was almost derailed because his minions forged over
7000 signatures on nomination petitions to qualify him for the
Democratic party’s primary ballot, is continuing to
demonstrate he’s unfit for office.
In Friday’s Washington Times, the mayor admitted,
finally, that the city’s 50 traffic/red-light cameras were
part of a money making scheme, an admission made after months of
denial by he and the city’s police chief, Charles Ramsey,
a.k.a. Chief Wiggam.
Initially, Williams and Ramsey were adamant that the
cameras were installed for reasons of safety, rather than as a
revenue-raiser for the city.
The highly inefficient (to put it mildly) D.C. government, is facing a
$320 million dollar budget deficit.
As a remedy, the economically illiterate dolts running
the show are planning on increasing an already intolerable tax
burden through a sin tax on cigarettes, a surcharge on getting
fire and police services to come to citizens’ aid, and the
ill-conceived camera scam.
Mayor Williams, in the spirit of all the tax and spend
liberals before him, even proposed an increase in income tax
rates for those evil rich people living in Williams’ fiefdom.
Perhaps the most abhorrent aspect of the city’s traffic camera
acknowledgement, though, is that D.C. officials are actually,
publicly admitting they have an incentive to see drivers break
the law. How
perverse and backwards is that?
D.C. police should be working to reduce crimes and
misdemeanors, rather than profit off thousands of citizens
running a few miles over the speed limit.
Instead of fastening cameras to traffic lights to catch
people breaking the law, D.C. police should be on the streets,
increasing their presence either on foot or in squad cars, to
deter speeders from breaking speeding statutes in the first
place! That is
supposed to be a major task of the police—to deter people from
committing crimes, however small, rather than gloating when
drivers or whoever else violate the law.
By design, the D.C. speed limit is anachronistically low, as city
officials know full well that people driving in modern, 21st
century sedans and SUV’s will not b compelled to move at the
speed of a horse and buggy.
Theoretically at least, the District stands to take in
thousands of dollars in ‘revenue’ simply because people will
risk a ticket to stay on time.
More sinister, officials will reap the harvest of repeat
offenders; people will continuously ‘break’ these purposely,
reduced speed limits.
What this amounts to is a contrived tax on District workers and
residents. Those
movers and shakers that are the lifeblood of Washington, D.C.
are getting more of their income taken from them and
redistributed to lazy bureaucrats and less than ambitious
‘disadvantaged’ residents in southeast D.C.
Washington, D.C. political brass are facing tough budget decisions over
the coming weeks. The
answer, however, isn’t to raise taxes and zap ‘speeders’
but rather to cut spending and lower taxes to free up more
income for D.C. residents to spend and invest.
To the city council’s credit, spending cuts are on the
docket, but as Art Laffer proved once upon a time, raising tax
rates will not raise revenue.
Let’s hope D.C. officials consider this fact before
plunging further into heavy taxation.
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