Uebelhart . Net

I had a weird thought this mornign on the way to work.

Houston is experiencing a budgetary shortfall (as are most governments). This is no surprise as the last mayor was a wasteful sloth that pandered to sports team owners and special businessmen to give away prime real estate and all kinds of tax breaks, and had inept managers under him that gave high dollar and high profit city contracts to relatives and friends, and spent money follishly, and, well you get the point.
Now the new mayor is a bit better, but is still throwing money around foolishly (funding private museums? $5 Million for tasers for HPD when they are understaffed? etc).

Well how can the government take in more money? They are already robbing the public with sales tax, licenses & fees, traffic tickets parking meters, etc. Then it hit me: Robbing. They are already doing it, well let’s legitimize it. Historically it has been sanctioned (Privateering). But I have a less extreme proposal: Pick Pockets.

Have city licensed pick pockets who have to turn over 1/2 of all cash they get to the city as a commission (or you can think that they get to keep half the cash as their collection fee). They also must turn over the wallet/credit cards/drivers license/etc to the city for return (they can only keep cash).

If they are caught in the act, they must act like a normal theif caught and the police will arrest them for processing - but once at the station they will show their city credentials and be released. The crevat is that they cannot return to the same area/event for at least 24 hours. This would make the citizens think they were being protected and keep them from realizing how many pick pocket incidents are actually city sponsored.

The kinds of events/places the CLPP (City Licensed Pick Pocket) can go to work:
Rap/Hip Hop/Heavy Metal Concerts & Clubs: after all these people will just spend the money on drugs anyways, right?
Sports Events: Well these people can afford it, if they can pay for the overpriced tickets. parking, and beer they must have disposable income….
Free City Festivals: Get some money from the slackers
Galleria / Macy’s: Get some money from the rich: they can afford it.

After that we can start licensing hookers (I say 10-20% off the top) for more income. We can call it a PIMP license (Professional Intercourse Management Program).