Don't do the crime if you can't do the time -- or pay the fine.

In the state of Texas, there are certain traffic offenses that garner the offender a surcharge in addition to the fine. Notices are sent when that money is owed -- I believe it's generally $250 a year for three years. As you can imagine, this does not apply to the person who is stopped every now and again for speeding or the person who accidentally runs a stop sign or a red light or doesn't notice that his registration or inspection has expired. This charge applies to repeat offenders, those who are driving on suspended licenses or with no insurance, and various other habitual behavior.

But, according to Steve Blow and other bleeding hearts, this is just a way for the big bad state to keep people impoverished. He says it unfairly targets low-income workers. Well, duh! It doesn't if they obey the traffic laws. And even if that were not the case, there is a program available that will adjust the surcharge in accordance with the offender's income.

But Steve holds up for our admiration a fine upstanding citizen named Devin Mitchell. Devin says she feels like a criminal. Perhaps that's because she is one. I looked up her record, and it's not by any means pristine. She says she fears leaving her house because she might end up in jail. Unfortunately, that's the price one pays for living outside the law.

She says all she wanted to do was work and take care of her own (tell that to her probation officer). But she said this desire keeps her from being a "viable member of society." What a stretch that is!

This all started, Devin claims, when she drove her deceased sister's car not knowing that it was not insured. Mistake number one, Devin, is not taking care of business. She knows insurance is required in Texas. Steve Blow says it's that "small transgression" that continues to plague her.

She says she paid the ticket, but no one told her about the surcharge. She says the first she knew of it was when her boss at Pizza Hut told her that her driver's license was suspended. So she switched from being a delivery driver to working inside the restaurant and set up a payment plan to pay off the surcharge.

But she "still had to drive to work with a suspended license." She said, "It's not like I had a choice. I had to work. And I had to drive to get there." No, she didn't. She did have a choice. If she couldn't get her live-in boyfriend to take her to work or catch a ride with a neighbor or ride a bike, she could have walked. I checked, and it's only two miles from her house in Cleburne to the Pizza Hut where she works. I used to walk home from school that far carrying an armload of books (I'm so old, that only nerds carried book satchels back then). 

And guess what? She got caught driving without a license and received another ticket. Since she didn't have a license, she didn't have insurance, either. And without insurance, you can't get a car inspected. So there's two more tickets with accompanying surcharges. Then she got a letter about an amnesty program. So what does she do? She hops in her uninspected, uninsured vehicle with no driver's license and drives to the DMV. And she was stopped again and ticketed again -- no inspection, driving on a suspended license. No insurance.

She tried to explain, she says, that she was going to get amnesty. It just doesn't seem to occur to her that amnesty is usually extended to those who are trying to mend their ways -- not to those who openly and defiantly and repeatedly break the same laws over and over again.

So Devin's solution is to just not pay anything. And now she has warrants out for her arrest. And it's all everybody else's fault. She quit her job and she and her boyfriend and their 7-year-old "scrape by" on his income. What would you like to bet that she's "scraping by" with a little help from food stamps, Section 8, etc., etc.?

Steve Blow says it's just terrible - $3.2 billion in surcharges have been assessed in what he calls the "Poverty Preservation Program." He says this translates into financial misery for low-income families. We'll see if he feels the same way when an uninsured motorist driving on a suspended license totals his car and causes injury to him and his family.

"Low-income workers driven to misery by state program." The Dallas Morning News; August 13, 2014; p. 1B.