Bad check funds falling (DA Mourns Lack of Bad Checks!)

Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser ^ | 30 September, 2003 | Marty Roney

[TankerKC]

WETUMPKA -- District Attorney Randall Houston can't bank on one of his largest funding sources to help make up for an expected 10 percent cut in state funding for the upcoming budget year.

Budget cuts and the growing trend of more people using debit and checking account cards are threatening to cut deeply into the money Houston's Worthless Check Unit brings into the 19th Judicial Circuit district attorney's office. Last year, the unit accounted for more than a third of the office's budget.

[TankerKC]

Well, obviously we need a law to keep folks from using debit cards.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

We really can't cut services or overhead, so we have to find more funding sources.

No problemo.

Just get junkie informants to accuse innocent people of dealing drugs and use the asset forfieture laws to steal... I mean take... their property.

As an added bonus, you get to send in SWAT teams to kick in their doors and slap them around.

[Sloth]

Maybe they could institute some kind of lottery-style incentive -- like, one out of every twenty bad checks you write will actually be good (i.e., covered by their department). This will encourage check kiting as well as consumer spending to boost the economy.

[JRandomFreeper]

"My primary goal is to make sure everybody keeps their jobs in this office,"

Hmmm. Doesn't seem like that's a proper goal for a District Attorney. He better hope that some good defense lawyer never uses his own quote against him in a malicious prosecution case.

/john

[Sunshine Sister]

I wonder why they can't reduce the staff who work rubber checks? If they are getting less money they don't need the employees. Oh wait......that mankes to much sense!

[Ronin]

Can't make this stuff up. DAs moaning that the lack of law-breakers are cutting into funds.

What do you want to bet someone starts pushing for asset forfeiture laws to be immediately followed by auctions. Grab it, sell it, bank the money and let the poor schmuck, er... citizen take it to court.

[Lokibob]

Idiots!!!!

If you get 20% less check kiteing, then you need 20% less people in the office. What am I missing here?

[KarlInOhio]

If you think he's crying now, just wait for the howls if drugs were legalized and his asset forfeiture budget dried up.

[TankerKC]

Can't make this stuff up.

I could, but no one would believe it!

[TankerKC]

Doesn't seem like that's a proper goal for a District Attorney.

Actually the comment doesn't surprise me...admitting it to the newspaper, that surprises me!

[johnb838]

Doesn't matter. These days if you write a check at a retail establishment, they have the ability to run it directly through the system just as if it was a debit card. So it doesn't matter if people write checks or use the card, the crime of bouncing checks is going out of style.

Excuse me if I enjoy a moment of schadenfreude at a government employee -- and a lawyer to boot, whining about losing his legal scam.

[6ppc]

My primary goal is to make sure everybody keeps their jobs in this office

Fewer bounced checks = less work for the worthless check unit = fewer bodies required. The real agenda here is empire preservation.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Yes I think you have the answer. Riley will now campaign for "Debit Card Free Alabama".

[Living Free in NH]

If you get 20% less check kiteing, then you need 20% less people in the office. What am I missing here?

They're civil servants and they aren't going anywhere.

[twittle]

"The governor wants to release 5,000 to 6,000 crooks and dopers from our jails," said Melvin Hankins of Millbrook. "They aren't going to be model citizens all of a sudden, just because they are out of jail. The DAs are looking at losing money. Lord knows our police and sheriffs need more people and more money.

Look on the bright side. Maybe they will bounce some checks!

[apillar]

The biggest percentage of inmates in my jail are people in on hot checks and those behind on child support payments," said Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin I KNOW I feel much safer with these insane hoodlums off the street and locked up behind bars where they belong. Now I can walk down the street at night without worrying that the person walking toward me might be behind on his child support. I shall rest much easier tonight...

[southland]

Many of your small town police depts prey on poor and uneducated or unenlightened people. They generally tend to leave people alone who are up to their scam. This is a pity for our society.
All you have to do is go to police court and see for your selves.

[Orangedog]

Hmmm. Doesn't seem like that's a proper goal for a District Attorney.

There is the dirty little secret that holds for the state and federal governments as well. They MUST NOT solve the problems they are tasked with solving.

"The biggest percentage of inmates in my jail are people in on hot checks and those behind on child support payments," said Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin.

Are we beginning to see a patern here? Imagine what would happen if tomorrow this country was graced with a miracle and the divorce rate was cut in half. What would happen to the tens of thousands of people whose jobs depend on families being destroyed and large amounts of income would no longer be taken from one parent and given to another under threat of criminal sanction. On top of that, the states would lose billions of dollars in federal tax money.

This little bad check department is model that much of our state and federal government have become. They have to create new criminals every year. The war on drugs, rubber checks, "deadbeat" dads....more will be added to the list because headcount must be maintained.

[patton]

What a strange world we live in.

[Coop]

LOL! A government office actually fretting over people behaving more responsibly (whether it's forced behavior or smarter choices is another issue).