By SJ Otto
I have to thank The Wichita
Eagle for putting out a piece that actually exposes abuse by our corporate
rulers who seem to relish seeing poor people suffer....just for being poor. In this case the poor get a
traffic ticket. Then they have trouble paying it. Eventually they lose their license
and can no longer legally drive. Now they can't legally drive to work. They
lose more money. They end up driving their cars anyway because they need to see
a doctor, go to work or get things they need from the store. Eventually they
are caught and they are put in jail. And the fines just keep piling up. Before
long these poor people owe as much as the make in a year. And it just keeps
getting worse from there.
Picking on poor people seems to be a pass-time for wealthier
Republican politicians who seem to treat being poor as a crime. Just as when
drowning a person, we don't let them up for a single breath of air. It just
delays the dying and prolongs a miserable life. In Kansas most poor people know
how much they are despised. The wealthy political establishment fights against raising the minimum wage, which has been
frozen for years. Here in Kansas none of these people can get health care,
through Medicaid since our Governor, Sam Brownback has prevented Medicaid expansion and sees to it that many of
these people die from preventable disease. Over the last six years, our Tea Party
legislatures have gotten rid of any government program that benefits poor
workers...and that includes a small government stipend that used to be issued to burry
people after they die.
As always, our corporate elites keeping poor workers going from pay
day to pay day, and any thing that goes wrong traps them in poverty and creates
a massive dependence on what ever lousy job they are stuck with.
The following article gives the details or the process.
From The
Wichita Eagle:
Larry Merriweather says he lost his driver’s
license after a downturn in the economy in 2008 made it difficult for him to
pay a traffic fine. Since then, he has racked up around $8,000 in tickets and
fees, many for driving on a suspended license. -Oliver Morrison The Wichita Eagle
Larry Merriweather runs a small
business from Wichita in which he strips and waxes the floors of stores across
Kansas.
In 2008, when
the recession hit, he said his income fell from $63,000 to $21,000 in one year.
As a result, he couldn’t pay a speeding ticket, and his license was suspended.
He couldn’t
stop working, so he said every time he got pulled over, he would get additional
fines and penalties, including having to pay bail when he was jailed for
driving on a suspended license. He’s never had a DUI and hasn’t been in any
accidents, he said. Merriweather said he now owes about $8,000 in back fines.
“How can I
make a living if I can’t get to my job?” Merriweather said. “I’m being treated
like a criminal, and my crime is driving to work.”
As of
November, more than 100,000 Kansans had their driver’s licenses suspended for
not paying traffic tickets. That means there was about one suspended license
for every 20 adults living in Kansas.
For the rest
click
here.
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