Wealth Redistribution a la Hillary

Associated Press | 10/29/03 | Jim Abrams

[Devlin]

Scofflaw diplomats may get their nations' aid cut

By Jim Abrams Associated Press

Web Posted : 10/29/2003 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON — Countries whose envoys fail to pay their parking tickets could lose part of their foreign aid under a measure approved by the Senate Tuesday. "If a diplomat ignores a parking ticket, we send him foreign aid. That makes no sense," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who sponsored the amendment to a foreign aid spending bill with fellow New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The amendment, approved by a voice vote, would reduce a country's foreign aid package by whatever that country owes in unpaid tickets, plus an additional 10 percent penalty.

The measure would apply to tickets and fines incurred in New York and Washington in the period from April 1, 1997, to Sept. 30, 2003.

The provision would help New York City recover up to $21 million owed for 186,000 unpaid tickets, according to Schumer's office.

The secretary of state can waive the penalties if it's in the national interest.

Schumer's office said that among the major offenders are Egypt, which owes nearly $2 million from 17,825 tickets; Kuwait, which owes $1.2 million from 11,122 violations; and Nigeria, in arrears almost $1 million from 8,520 violations.

Among others with a big backlog of unpaid tickets are Indonesia, Morocco, Brazil, Pakistan, Senegal, Angola and Sudan.

10/29/2003

[Devlin]

The implication of the above is that money is being given to these countries for no particular purpose, that the federal government can realistically deduct $13.95 from the million dollar aid package to Wildebeestefontain for an unpaid ticket, and that vainly attempting to "charge" foreign powers will somehow influence the behavior of their diplomats. If I were a more suspicious person, I would suspect yet another "backdoor" plan to rip off the middle class tax payer to finance a vote buying scheme for a well connected politician.

[Brandon]

I think it sounds like a good idea to be honest. Did you read the whole article? The SoS can waive the provisions if doing so is in the national interest, which seems like it takes care of situations where it is really important to the United States that foreign aid to a particular country not be interrupted. As to the objection that it would be ungainly to deduct $13.95 from a foreign government's foreign aid package, it seems as if it would be easy enough for the State Dept. to write regulations that just require D.C. and NYC to report their totals on an annual basis, and then decline to push the paperwork for the deductions for any country where the amount involved is so trivial as not to be worth the trouble.

Are you sure your problem isn't with who is sponsoring this legislation? I don't like Schumer and I like Hillary even less. But I can't help wondering how you would respond if it had been suggested by nice conservative REpublican.

[Devlin]

I believe that my comments stand. The money is, (hopefully), being given to those countries for some legit purpose which is, (hopefully), considered to be in the best interest of the United States. The option of waiving the penalty simply adds another of time and resource draining bureaucracy to the game. The idea sounded interesting at first, but I truly believe that it represents yet more "window dressing" legislation aimed at siphoning money off into local vote buying payoff scams.
Thank you for your comments. I truly hope that I am wrong about this one.

[NormalGuy]

During the California election which politician said: Unequal distribution of money is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution

[Devlin]

Well... I think that we can rule Arnold out!

[clee1]

Diplomatic immunity means that NO laws can be enforced against any accredited diplomat.

It works for us in other countries.

I personally couldn't care less where diplomats park.

[Devlin]

A truly egalitarian solution would be to assign parking in the same lower income and high crime areas in which many New Yorkers end up leaving their cars. As the diplomatic staff for "plum" assignments such as the US tend to come from the wealthy and privileged, it would be interesting to see how much protection the diplomatic tags would provide. How can a diplomat claim to truly claim to understand their host country without sharing in this common aspect of the native culture?