Showing posts with label revenue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revenue. Show all posts

Is Safety Just A Pretense? How One Police Dept Racked Up 1700 Citations Deploying Questionable DUI Checkpoints

by Angela Caputo.  On an unseasonably cool summer evening last year, Berwyn police officers stood at Ogden and East avenues eyeing cars as they crawled through a roadside check. The officers were working a special night DUI patrol, looking for bloodshot eyes, signs of drug use and vehicle violations like expired tags and broken lights, stopping vehicles   ... MORE

Regulation Nation: New York City's Licensing Scheme Can Rake In Over $200,000 For One Hot Dog Vending Permit

by Kiri Tannenbaum. Greedy gov't policy restricts competition. While the typical New York City hot dog costs about the same ($2-$3) at every street cart, the fees the vendor pays can vary wildly. Some pay just a few thousand a year, while other vendors pay the city more than $200,000 just to have their carts in the right spots. According to the New York  ... MORE

Scott Shackford: Self-Driving Cars Would Limit Human Error And Therefore Could Destroy Fine-Based City Government

So what's the downside?       One of the propelling concepts behind self-driving cars isn't just innovation for the sake of innovation, leading us to our sci-fi Jetsons future. If successfully implemented, it will make ground travel safer, particularly in higher population areas, increase transportation efficiency and ultimately human productivity.   ... MORE

'It's All About The Money:' Iraq War Veteran Ends Up Homeless After $25 Traffic Ticket Spirals To $4,000

by Charlene Adams.      California's money-making citation scheme. Critics are calling California's traffic citation system a money-making scam that targets the poor and places inappropriate fees on basic penalties from a citation. Four million California residents -- nearly 20 percent of the state's adult population -- currently have a suspended license   ... MORE

Michigan City Makes The Citizens Pay For Police Brutality

The beatings will continue until revenue improves. One time tax hike needed to pay settlement. Think that since you “aren’t breaking any laws,” police brutality doesn’t affect you? Well, that’s certainly not the case in one Michigan city. Instead of violent cops paying for their own wrong-doings, the legal expenses associated with police brutality ... MORE

Steve Forbes: Income Tax Rate Cuts Work. Always.

The federal government could learn from the states.  One of the genius features of our federal system of government is that it allows states to be laboratories for policies, to see what works and what doesn’t. The great welfare reform bill of 1996 came out of the pioneering policies of Wisconsin, which demonstrated that there could be a work   ... MORE

In Nevada, Applying Lip Balm While Driving Gets You A Fine

Distracted driving laws are great revenue scheme.    A Nevada woman received a $200 ticket after she was pulled over for putting on makeup while she was behind the wheel as part of a statewide crackdown on distracted drivers. So what sort of beauty product was she applying while stopped at a red light?  Lip balm. Stephanie Fragoso was    ...  MORE

Jacob Sullum: Ted Cruz Is Right About Taxes

IRS code's headache-inducing complexity is a scandal. If you have not done your taxes yet, do not count on getting help from the Internal Revenue Service in answering any last-minute questions that may arise. The IRS estimates that only half of the anxious and bewildered taxpayers who call the agency this year will get through to a     ... MORE

Arkansas Drivers May Be Taxed Based On Odometer

by Mallory Jordan.  Gov't seeks new way to sheer the sheep. Drivers in Arkansas could be seeing a big change if House Bill 1716 passes the Arkansas legislature. A bill to tax Arkansas drivers per mile they drive passed committees and now moves to the House. For drivers who drive to work every day or drive anywhere, the state may begin to look  ... MORE

6 Ridiculous Myths About Legal Internet Gambling Busted

by Michelle Minton.   Should the United States government ban online poker? One billionaire casino owner thinks so. In the quest to convince Americans that they shouldn't be able to do what they want with their own money in their own homes, proponents of the ban have spent big bucks and spread big lies. Below are some of the biggest whoppers.      ... MORE

Leftists Priority: Raising Revenue Or Punishing Success?

by Daniel J. Mitchell.     On the issue of so-called progressive taxation, our left-wing friends have conflicting goals.  Some of them want to maximize tax revenue in order to finance ever-bigger government.  But others are much more motivated by a desire to punish success.  They want high tax rates on the “rich” even if the government collects less  ... MORE

Shearing The Sheep: Democrats Want To Spend Taxpayer Dollars To Study New Ways To Tax People Even More

by Pete Kasperowicz.     Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) this week introduced legislation that would give states federal grants to study the possibility of imposing a controversial new tax — one that would tax people for every mile they drive in their cars. Blumenauer’s Road Usage Charge Pilot Program Act is the latest effort to move away from a gas  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: How Uncle Sam Became A Bank Robber

Legalizing theft.   During her confirmation hearings last week, Loretta Lynch, President Obama's choice to succeed Eric Holder as attorney general, called civil forfeiture, a form of legalized theft in which the government takes people's property without accusing them of a crime, "a wonderful tool." Lynch, currently the U.S. attorney for the     ... MORE

Pot Is Making Colorado So Much Money The State May Have To Give Some Of Its $50 Million Windfall To Taxpayers

by David McCormack.   Colorado has generated so much money from recreational pot taxes that the state is bound by law to pass some of the tax money directly on to residents. Voters legalized marijuana in 2012 on the understanding that revenue raised would go to schools, but a 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment means some of the   ... MORE

Jeffrey Tucker: Another Reason Uber Gets Banned

Depressing drunk drivers costs government revenue.  I live in a college town where drunk driving is a way of life. I once asked a policeman what his main job was in my town and he said very plainly: “stopping and arresting drunk drivers.” I asked how he knows whom to stop. His answer is that he has developed a nose for this.    ... MORE