Next headline - Fee disclosure fee added to airline tickets!
Fees are the crack cocaine for businesses & governments today. Canât raise prices due to competition? Just add a myriad of fees and call it âconsumer choiceâ. Canât raise taxes? Charge fees for services that were once funded by taxpayer dollars. Courts are backlogged but the legislature wonât increase funding for public defenders? Charge indigent defendants attorney fees whether they win or lose their case.
Itâs insidious and a hidden form of taxation that everyone pays for but has no recourse against. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and this crap needs to constantly be exposed.
NPR is running a series this week on the vicious cycle caused by fees in our justice system. Of course most of these people are a) poor, b) minorities, and c) criminals so nobody gives two shits about holding their heads underwater.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the-poor
Iâm sure thereâs a reason that being told to let people know what theyâre going to be paying for is a vicious, anti-American attack on the free market system.
Oops, my snarckastic comment was beaten out by reality:
âThe âproposal overreaches and limits how free markets work,â Airlines for America said in a statement.â
This is very welcome news for me as a regular traveller. It is however interesting to note that legislation only gets passed in areas that directly affect lawmakers.
Where are the laws against ATM fees in liquor stores that for poorer people can be their only way of accessing money? Where are the laws against the usury of paycheck cashing services?
A real democracy would have representatives whoâve lived that life too and would fight for their people.
A modest proposalâŚHow about a fee for carry on bags but NOT for checked bags? Fewer carry ons =>less time boarding and deboarding =>less time at the gate=> more efficient use of aircraft.
And rental car fees too, right?
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