Many of the policies that Democrats support are unfair and discriminate against wealthy people. Vast numbers of liberals think that if someone worked hard and accumulated a lot of money, they should be punished for it by being forced to pay more in taxes and fines.

For example, California is considering allowing it cost less for poor people to commit crimes. A legislator has recently proposed a bill that would link the cost of a ticket to a person’s income. However, doing this completely defeats the purpose of using fines as deterrents.

According to reports, the California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and the Public Safety Committee both recently passed SB 185. The bill, which is expected to be voted on by the California State Senate next month, gives judges the ability to lower a person’s fine if they don’t make a lot of money. Somehow, they think this is fair.

State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) is the one responsible for the bill. In an attempt to justify it, he said, “we’re not telling people you shouldn’t pay a price when you violate the law—you should pay a price when you violate the law. The price just can’t be 1,000 times your annual salary,” adding, “our objective here is justice.” He thinks that it doesn’t make sense to use fines as a deterrent because it’s easier for rich people to pay. He believes that it’s wrong to use the money to try to enforce the law. “Is the purpose of government to collect money off the backs of people or is the purpose to enforce the law?” he said.

Beth Colgan, a UCLA professor, also came out in support of the legislation. She claimed that people should support the bill because the state may be able to collect more money from people if they’re fined reasonable prices. “A properly designed system could result in greater revenues. That’s because not only did the percentage of payments go up but the dollars collected went up,” she argued.

Thankfully, Sean Hoffman, the Legislative Director for the California District Attorneys Association, stood up to liberals and spoke out against the proposed law. “Some amount of responsibility must come with operating a motor vehicle and promising to appear in court when violating the rules of the road,” he insisted.

Hertzberg, Colgan, and other supporters of the bill don’t seem to fully understand why we have fines. They aren’t designed for the purpose of making money. They’re designed to deter crime. It doesn’t matter if having lower fines makes it easier to pay. The whole point of the fine is to make the crime they’re committing so unaffordable they don’t break the law in the first place. A large financial penalty makes the likely costs of committing a crime outweigh the potential benefits. If a potential criminal will possibly lose a lot of money if they follow through with their plan, it’s more probable that they’ll decide against breaking the law.

Also, it’s completely unfair to fine people differently for breaking the same law. The legislation proposed could possibly lead to fining rich people more for their crimes. Just like with taxes, the left may use this to later implement “progressive” penalties. If they did, fines would be associated with a person’s income and people with higher incomes would be forced to pay more money. For example, if a poor and rich person both broke the law, a poor person could be fined $100 while a rich person could be fined $10,000.

This must not be allowed to happen. Conservatives in California should stand up to the authoritarian liberals in office and stop them from passing such an absurd law. If the left succeeds, they’ll make the entire state a much more dangerous place. If people want to break the law and can afford to do so financially, it’s likely that they will. Hertzberg and any other representatives that support the bill need to be voted out of office and replaced with more reasonable people who have a basic understanding of legal theory.

The unfair policies of the Democratic Party must be stopped. Fining people different amounts is not only unfair, it also stops the penalty from acting as a deterrent.