Raising Money For CT Legal Aid
Yesterday, The Hartford Courant ran an editorial about how legal aid funding is drying up.
The Courant suggests raising the annual attorney registration fee to help fund legal aid.
I don’t think this does enough. The burden of providing legal services for the poor falls not just on lawyers but our State has a whole.
My suggestion: a $10 surcharge on all court entry fees from small claims on up with all monies going directly to legal aid organizations.
Given the number of writs filed across Connecticut’s courts a surcharge maybe part of the solution.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I definitely want to see the legal aid organizations adequately funded….but put a surcharge on court fees "from small claims on up"? Why should poor and working people pay more so that Connecticut can give it to lawyers who represent poor and working people?
I have a better idea. Have the State of Connecticut act like providing legal assistance to those that can't afford it is a matter of policy not charity. At least for the next two year period, while the country is in the deepest recession since the 1930's, allocate the funds necessary to maintain all legal aid organizations at their 2008 budget levels. Raise the funds – and the funds to avoid similar budget cuts that will devastate working and poor people in Connecticut – by shifting the tax burden to the rich and corporations.
Yes, it goes against every ounce of political wisdom that the corporate-owned media and the corporate bought-and-paid-for politicians have to dispense. But considering that right now there is not a single "sacrifice" that is being discussed in the next budget that doesn't fall 100 times harder on the working class than it does on the rich, I can't think of a single good reason why the rich shouldn't have to pay their share.
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