Maggie's Farm

The legal costs to individuals and businesses are destroying the American economy. America, the most litigious nation and the most-lawyered nation (per capita) in the world is burdened by a broken, and crushingly expensive system of legal care.

Few Americans can afford high-quality legal care at $500-$2000/hour when needed, and end up in legal clinics or representing themselves. Few, if any, have legal coverage. Legal costs sap profits from business in ways that are entirely unproductive. The poor, minorities, and women are, of course, most hard hit by the difficulty finding justice in a money-driven legal system, while the Mafia, politicians, and Wall Streeters skate and the lawyers drive Lexi and Mercedes in their Valentino and Armani suits.

It costs more to contest a speeding ticket or a routine Maggie's Farm disorderly conduct ticket than to pay it. And when you die - forget it: You are forced to pay lawyers all over the place.

There is no affordable justice in America today, and God knows how many bankruptcies, heartaches, and ruined lives result. It's unfair, unjust and un-American. 10% of American African-American youth rot in jail for lack of legal care while rich white guys like Bill Ayers are walking the street and hosting cocktail parties for politicians.

Meanwhile, hordes of tort lawyers are watching for every time you fail to clear your driveway, and checking the lead levels in the toys and books you produce. Hungry divorce lawyers prowl around your home at night, waiting to hear an argument. They are everywhere, looking to either defend you or to prosecute you.

There are more laws up against you than there are diseases in this world.

Furthermore, unlike medical care, the US Constitution does concern itself with justice more than a little bit.

Just think about your annual direct and indirect legal care costs: they are included in your auto liability insurance, your homeowner's insurance, your tax guy, the guy you paid to get your kid reduced from a DWI to a DUI, the guy who managed the refinancing of your house, the indirect costs to your employer and in your town taxes for having to maintain a legal department, and the legal costs built into everything you buy in America - including doctors' malpractice insurance - which is basically legal insurance. Create a pension: you need a lawyer. Even your lawyer has to buy legal insurance, inflating his charges. And even your investments - every mutual fund has a legal team paid for with your fees. The list goes on and on.

Something must be done immediately to correct this drag on the American economy and on the American spirit. Short of killing all the lawyers (I am quite fond of a number of them), I suggest a government take-over of this broken, unjust system by 111 Federal bureaucracies, and with the help of our politicians, to solve this crisis.

And a 5% Federal tax increase to pay for it all.