It is if you scale the fine based on their income.
Also, an idea: rather than handing fines and fees to the government -- which incentivizes all kinds of bad behavior, from civil forfeiture to crazy permitting laws -- you stick it in a general fund, and hand it back -- evenly distributed -- to the taxpayer as a dividend at the end of the year.
Do that for every bit of revenue that government makes outside of collecting taxes.
I'm curious where this falls down (outside of implementation difficulties).
People will start voting for laws that are applied inconsistently on outsiders or minorities in order to enrich themselves.
Imagine a town where the police always ticket passing cars for 1000 dollars per violation, except when the car belongs to a town member in good standing in which case they just give a warning.
Also, an idea: rather than handing fines and fees to the government -- which incentivizes all kinds of bad behavior, from civil forfeiture to crazy permitting laws -- you stick it in a general fund, and hand it back -- evenly distributed -- to the taxpayer as a dividend at the end of the year.
Do that for every bit of revenue that government makes outside of collecting taxes.
I'm curious where this falls down (outside of implementation difficulties).