A NY state idea

Hello, i saw this on Fox News and figured it would be a good post. Everyone knows who Mr. Bernard Madoff is and what he did? The guy in NY who ran a Ponzi scheme considered to be Wall Street's biggest investment fraud. The state of New York has introduced this bill. Rich New Yorkers convicted of crimes would be forced to pay the state and federal governments for how much it costs to keep them in jail. One of the best ideas in that state in the recent past.

The state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli (D), estimated in 2007 that it costs the counties around $1 billion a year, based on the daily costs of $80 to $90 a day for each inmate. "Far too often, taxpayers are stuck with the bill for criminals who have extensive personal wealth waiting for them once they are discharged from our state's penal system," Republican Assemblyman Jim Tedisco said in a statement.

Though federal prosecutors sought to strip Madoff of all of his assets before he went to prison, Tedisco told Reuters that his bill would force drug dealers and other high-profile people who serve jail time to pay for their prison upkeep. A sliding scale would determine how much convicts would have to pay, based on their assets, under Tedisco's bill. Those who are worth $200,000 or more would pay the entire tab, while those whose net worth is $40,000 or less would pay nothing.Like many states, New York has looked at various ways of driving drive down the cost of keeping people in jail.

I personnally think this bill is great! This shouldn't be just a state to state kinda thing. DOJ should foolow in suit and make this a "federal" law. *Note information was found on Reuters. Here is the linkfor the entire story
www.reuters.com...

Great idea!

Certainly prisoners need to get that money from somewhere, but the best place would be from their own kind!

There are not many "tax" like increases I support, but this is one.

So if someone is worth 41,000 they pay for it all and drive up a debt? if not what is the percentage? 40k net worth is nothing. In NY you cant have a net worth of less than 60k and expect to live comfortably, or even be considered middle class.

If anything they should raise the min to around 100,000 min, you pay a percentage of the cost as you approach around 300k then you pay the whole tab.

This could work with a little bit on tweaking, but as it stands now it would wreck things for those who are put in prison for minor offenses or those who are wrongfully accused.

would a FEMA camp follow the same principle? it would be sorta like a jail.

i also noticed they are referring to net worth, which could get tricky.

Your net worth is the value of all of your assets, minus the total of all of your liabilities. Put another way, it is what you own minus what you owe. If you owe more than you own, you have a negative net worth. If you own more than you owe you will have a positive net worth.

I may just be paranoid, but there seems to be wiggle room in this, and it sounds like it could get taken advantage of.



[edit on 21-7-2009 by phi1618]

In a neighboring county to me here in Michigan All the inmates have to pay housing costs regardless of income level.So the longer the sentence the bigger the bill.