I have a math problem for you to try: If you are an athlete whose total earnings are roughly equal to $1 billion and you are issued a driving citation that requires you to pay $164, how many weeks will it be before you can afford to buy groceries again?
I'm a Floridian, I'm broke, and I'm pissed.
Here's my story:
I graduated from the University of Central Florida at the beginning August of 2008. My diploma has two different honors listed on it -- Honors in the Major and summa cum laude. After four months of being unable to find a job, I enrolled in a tech school, thinking that perhaps my lack of definable "skills" was what was preventing me from earning a living. A year later, I can assure you that whatever it was I was hoping for didn't come to pass. The tech program was underfunded by the county government and the two job offers I had while I was in the middle of the program were withdrawn due to the recession.
I now work three hours a week, because that's the best I was offered. At least, I get paid for three hours; there's a lot I end up doing on my own time. And I'm scraping by. I can afford groceries and gas and I still have about 45 cents left in my wallet after that. It's a good life.
But holy mother of G-d and all her wacky nephews, do I drive carefully! If I were to get the same careless driving citation that Tiger Woods did, I'd be looking at about three weeks worth of a starvation diet and walking for 40 minutes to get to the nearest bus line.
Now, can you honestly tell me that you think this is fair? Forget the implications for the state of Florida, which is on the brink of financial disaster and could use the money; just think about me and the thousands of Floridians who are in the same position that I am. If I make a mistake driving, I'm going to be punished with hunger. Same goes for my family, my friends, and pretty much everyone we know.
Contrary to the title of this diary, I don't really feel that Tiger Woods owes me money...but he owes somebody money. If I have to live under the threat of an $164 citation just for hitting a tree, why isn't Tiger subjected to a penalty that would be at least a little significant to him? It absolutely baffles me that traffic fines aren't indexed to income. It's high time that they were.
Sometimes "equal justice" does not mean "identical justice."
Update: I can't believe how many commenters I'm seeing insist that punishments have to be absolutely equal, so a fine is a fine and why don't I shut up. Did you read my diary? My point is that a flat $164 fine is not equal, because the value of $164 is vastly different to someone who can afford to pay that fine and someone who can't afford to pay that fine. There is nothing "equal" about it.
I am amazed and appalled by the negativity I'm reading in these comments. My call for proportional justice has been interpreted as a call for unequal justice. I think that if I had made these comments in any other context, I would have been better received; instead, I'm seeing people make the pro-flat-tax argument ("what, rich people should pay more?!") with the excuse that "if you do the crime, you do the time." That's not only failing to be compassionate, it's also wholly naive. There are mountains of literature on who gets favorite by America's justice system.
I have been called silly and illogical, but this is not an idea I came up with on my own; Finland, for example, made news a few years back by fining a man 170,000 Euros for speeding. You don't like it? Fine. But don't belittle my thought process. I happen to agree with that notion.