Last spring, I got a traffic ticket. Like most Texans, I took the driver’s education route to get the thing dismissed – but still got stuck with a $200 “administrative fee” (the same as the fine for the ticket) as a result. And I was not alone – at least six other cars were stopped at that speed trap while I was there, and it operated from about 9:00 in the morning until about 4:00 in the afternoon weekdays for about 3 months – until the return diminished and they switched their location to another intersection a couple of miles away. I later saw that the city in question had managed to avoid budget cuts because of the increase in “enforcement activity” by the local cops that made up for the revenue shortfall from other sources of income.

I therefore read this story with interest.

Reluctant to raise taxes publicly, the Bloomberg administration is pursuing a "stealth tax" - launching an unprecedented squeeze on Big Apple residents and businesses, cracking down on parking, health, safety and quality-of-life infractions with a vengeance, the data shows.

The ongoing blitz has worked so well that City Hall bean counters expect to rake in a record $884 million in fines by the end of this fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010.

That's a 10% jump over last year's $802 million.

And there's no letting up. Fines are projected to increase to $896 million in 2011.
"We need to get the revenue from somewhere," said a City Hall source. "We could just tax people and take it out of your wallet or we can be aggressive in enforcement."

Belt-tightening by government seems not to be a consideration.

H/T American Thinker