Reply #86: For Poor Folk, If There Is A Fee We Call It

[mntleo2]

...a regressive tax. Regressive means that for the poor it is just another burden for them to pay something to somebody for a necessity. This means there is no sliding scale, no way for the poor not to pay those fees so if you need your prescription, you just have to pay it ~ or die because you could not afford it. In my state we do not have an income tax, so everything is taxed ... from the places we rent in property taxes to the toilet paper we use, and if we are lucky enough to have a car there are taxes on the tabs, the gas, and now tolls to pay if we have to use that particular route to get to work.

When they "cut" one place for taxes, you can bet they will sneak in a "fee" of some sort into another place. All these "fees" just pile up more heavy burdens on the poor, it is "just" 10 cents to someone who can afford it, but for someone who is poor, 10 cents can mean that, if they are a dime short, they cannot ride the bus to work 1 day before payday. To add the dime for a plastic bag SOUNDS good, but to the poor all it is doing is making it so they have to try to take the bus with 10 things in their hands and they cannot hold the hand of the toddler they took with them (if there IS a bus where they live). As boobolink notes, it will not change a damn thing for the Hummer driver, they could care less if they have to pay an extra dime, it will not affect them anyway.

One day when I was a little girl, I was walking down the road with my grandmother, who grew up so poor in South Dakota, she learned to make or scrounge for just about everything she needed. There was a penny laying on the pavement and I kicked it ~ and this was when a penny at least bought a small piece of candy, I am not sure a penny buys anything now ... My grandmother bent over and picked it up and pocketed it while kindly admonishing me for "treating money badly." I said to her, "Grandma, it is just a penny ..." My grandmother pointed out something important to me that day, she said, "You know if you go into a bank with 99 cents and ask to have it changed to a dollar bill, the bank will not give it to you until you find that last penny, so every penny counts..."

And what Grandma taught me is true to this day. I can walk into any store to buy food for my family with a penny short and they can tell me, "Sorry we will not sell that to you until you come back with the right amount." So thus my family will go without. If I wrote a check and my account was short a penny, it will cost me $20-30.00 in "punishment" because my account did not have enough to cover the check. If I try to pay my car tabs and are a penny short, they will not give it to me, unless they happen to have one laying around to give to me.

To the poor every cent counts, even a dime, as it can mean the difference between starving for the day or getting your needs met.

My 2 cents, which is about all I have ...

Cat In Seattle

P.S. I glare at Hummer drivers and sometimes even yell at them, "Halliburton lover!" or "Soldier killers!" They usually don't get it because they are so into themselves and their "rights" they do not realize that innocents and our kids in Iraq are dying so these clueless idiots can fill their tanks every 10 minutes at the gas station. Because I know laws or fees do not change behavior as much as social disapproval, I figure a little taste of public denunciation is something they deserve to endure if they are going to drive such a gas hog. Try it sometime, it is exhilarating and does not cost a cent!