Here’s something you might find surprising. Despite two years of pandemic-related anxieties, California is now so awash in money that politicians in Sacramento are debating how to spend tens of billions of surplus dollars.
It’s an unlikely season of plenty, and it leaves us with no excuse for ignoring the dirty secrets that help fill California’s coffers in leaner times — a crazy array of fines, fees and penalties levied on traffic violations, foster care and government benefits — that squeeze money from those least able to afford it.
These are “high-pain, low-gain” ways of raising money. They glean a few extra dollars for community chests but at tremendous future cost. We don’t save taxpayer dollars by crushing families’ finances. We won’t move toward a more equitable world with predatory practices that disproportionately hit Black and brown Californians.
