A Modest Proposal for the 21st Century

Recently there's been a series of articles going around the internet about a couple that lost their home in Tennessee because they didn't pay a $75 annual fee (the firefighters came to the fire, not to put it out, but to make sure it didn't spread to nearby homes that had paid the fee), and more recently about counties in Georgia that are considering using prisoners to augment their fire fighting departments to save money and make vital services more affordable. (On a separate note, where else but the south would they even consider this - I'm looking for the chain gangs of my youth to return in road maintenance projects soon - I sort of dug the striped duds the prisoners wore.)  Of course, ever the realists (unlike administrators who apparently are the dreamers in this situation), The fire fighters complain that having prisoners would break the community trust as homeowners would worry that the combined group would steal from them.  


Which leads me to propose my own Modest Proposal for the 21st of my own (Jonathan Swift watch out!  Newt Gingrich watch out!)


There's any easy fix to both problems, and to addressing scofflaws in society in general.  Eliminate personal bankruptcy completely, and reinstitute debtors' prisons - if you can't pay your credit cards, you go to a debtor institution where you're afforded an opportunity to work off your debt.  The prison would act as a job referral agency, matching scofflaws with value added work in the community, potentially including firefighters.  After paying a modest charge for lodging, security, meals, and administration (say $80 or $90,000 a year), anything the debtor earns above this would be applied to first the accumulating interest on their debt, and then to their debt.  Eventually they would be debt free, and have learned some real market valued skill sets they can apply in the geriatric ward upon their release.


This is a really exciting concept, we could return the concept of legal inter generational debt obligation (as a child of a scofflaw it is your responsibility to pay of the debt as well), and afford the children of debtors the opportunity to learn real, viable, job skills.  None of these namby-pamby liberal arts learnings like music or fine arts (who hires these folks anyways - it's just a poor decision and we should protect them from making it) - no, the children could learn to be janitors like Newt Gingrich is proposing (he's so my hero for this fine, well thought out suggestion, except I worry as a modest proposal it might outshine mine).


The economic benefits of this are astounding.  


First - Debtors have a chance to pay off their debts, rather than living with the crushing reality of never being able to pay for all the stuff they bought with the credit cards they never should have had.


Second - Industry has an opportunity to hire skilled, low cost labor to become competitive with overseas slave societies like China or India. 


Third - the youth of our country could learn real, salable job skills through on the job training.


Fourth - Banks could sell the past due debt to these Debtor prisons, and the individual be incarcerated with I believe only an administrative procedure - no more expensive bankruptcy filings clogging our court systems and draining pubic funds unnecessarily.


I could go on, but you get the point.  The concept is brilliant, timely and resolves many of our deeper societal issues by reinstating accountability for your actions into the equation.


You must admit this is a great idea, - this Modest Proposal for the 21st Century.  Join me in writing your Congressman (chose the one most funded by the prison industry, they'll listen because they know which side of the toast is buttered) to demand a return to debtors prisons as a way to solve our competitive issues and address the lack of moral values that have evolved over the past 40 years.