It seems sad to me that the people who can least afford the requirements of laws are usually hit the hardest by them financially. Fees for licenses, permits, and services are never scaled to the buyers income. Everybody pays the same fee and thereby the poorest are hit the hardest in complying with the laws.The laws dealing with ownership and operation of motor vehicles is a major example. Cars have to be registered, smog checked, and insured. It’s not a major cost to most of us, just an inconvenience, but to those who are living at poverty levels, it’s a lot of money. And ironically, it is the poorest people who generally own cars that will fail the smog check and they will have to pay even more for the repairs needed to get the car to pass.
Who is most likely to be driving a vehicle that is going down the highway in a cloud of exhaust smoke? If the person could afford a better car, they would probably be driving a better car. So then they get stopped by the police and asked for their driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. Finding that they don’t have insurance, the car is impounded. Have you ever had to deal with a car that was impounded, perhaps because it was illegally parked? To get the car back, you had to pay towing charges, storage charges, and probably a fee for a release certificate from the police headquarters. It will add up to hundreds of dollars to get your car back, and that’s if you act quickly.
But consider the process for the poor guy who car was impounded for lack of proof of insurance. To get the police to release the car, he’ll have to obtain the insurance and be able to show proof of it. It will probably take a day or more to get the insurance while the car still sits in storage, running up the fee. It will almost always wind up costing the poor person more due to his inability to deal with the event as quickly as can people who have better financial resources.
Now, I’m not at all against requiring cars and trucks to be insured, smog free, insured, and registered. Those laws are important and helpful for our society, and I don’t have a specific solution to the ability-to-pay inequality problem. I’m just saying that all laws should be designed to achieve the desired result without unequal financial impact on the lowest income persons.
A new law was recently passed in Texas which requires that doctors have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of where they perform abortions, resulting in closing of all but about 20 clinics in a state of 26 million people. Does that mean that women cannot get abortions if they really want them? No, but it means it’s going to cost more, because they will have to travel to those clinics still available in Texas or to another state where they can get help. Once again it is the poorest people who are most heavily impacted financially by this new law. Many of those low income women will be economically forced to have children that they cannot afford to care for properly which often leads to needing more social services which the taxpayers pay for.
It should be a standard process in our creation of laws and enforcement of them to consider the impact on “the least among us” and to try to find ways to offset that impact. Such a process is not only the right thing to do; it is economically wise. In regard to the two examples presented in this article, there are negative impacts on our economy resulting from the implementation of those laws.
The legal requirements of owning, maintaining, and fueling cars add up to discouraging struggling people from having one. That results in a reduced ability to find and maintain a job and makes it more difficult in general to take their children and other family members to school and to get medical care when needed; not impossible, just more difficult. Hardships add up.
Regarding the Texas legislation making it more difficult for women to get abortions, I realize there are many people who have religious objections to abortion, but I don’t see an equal concern for the quality of life of the children born due to those laws. Which is the greater evil?
In the end everything comes down to economics. All laws, no matter their intentions, have economic consequences, and the potential consequences should be considered and offsets implemented as a part of the process.
“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.” Sholom Aleichem
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” John F. Kennedy