One of the funniest, yet provocative routines performed by the comedian Chris Rock is his proposal to solve gun violence. Price the bullets at $5,000 per bullet. He goes on to describe, as only he can, that shooters will become very judicious with how they use ammunition at that price point.
I was thinking of his idea today and thought it might be a good strategy on other things that are causing problems in America. Civil protest need only require a permit, yet if you bring a weapon that will cost extra. Bring a bat, baton or stick and that will be $5,000 per weapon per person. Bring a knife, sword, dagger, etc., that will be $10,000. Bring a hand gun or rifle that will be $25,000. Someone has to pay for the police cost.
If Congress wants to fund raise on our tax dollars, that will be $5,000 for two hours worth of calling payable by the political party. In person fund raising will be $10,000. If a lobbyist wants to talk with you, they must pay Treasury $25,000.
As for making people tell the truth, if a news agency tells a falsehood and doesn’t visibly retract a story, $100,000 fine. If a President or member of Congress tells a falsehood without a visible retraction, $25,000. If a story is repeated, the fine is tripled. If the politician hits ten lies, the fine is tripled, as well.
The job to collect national fines will be imposed on the Secretary of the Treasury. Local fines can be collected by the City Tax Collectors. Failure to pay, will double the fine and require public disclosure by name and party. This may cause folks to think about how they use their time. It would also help with our deficit and debt.
musingsofanoldfart 
Excellent! Trump’s lies alone could pretty much wipe out our national debt.
Janis, he certainly could make a large dent in it. Thanks, Keith
Excellent idea. If nothing else, it would keep us all so busy collecting fines that we wouldn’t have any time to disagree 🙂
True. You know one of the best things the Department of Labor did is set up a Voluntary Compliance Program. If a company realizes it made a mistake in employment law, they could remedy the mistake and do a mea culpa filing with a penalty with the DOL. So rather being caught in an audit, the company may remedy a non-exempt from overtime classification issue, eg and pay a fine of $10,000 and pay overtime to those shortchanged. It works quite well.
Dear Keith,
I love creative ideas to increase governmental revenues while taxing things/ acts that are counter to the public’s interests.
Its too bad our legislators are not so inclined to be equally creative in addressing the myriad of issues that need addressing yesterday instead of all their politicking.
Hugs, Gronda
Thanks Gronda. If we could stop the transgression just a little, it would help, too.