Excerpt:
In April of each year, the victims of Wall Street fraudster Bernard Madoff will write out checks to pay for his upkeep.
They will do it every time they pay their taxes--so that means ordinary taxpayers, too, deserve to feel aggrieved about Madoff's offenses.
States across the country face billion-dollar budget shortfalls, so jobs and services must be cut. And yet billions of tax dollars are spent providing for criminals behind bars, including rich ones.
If wealthy criminals instead paid for their own prison costs, however, lots of money could be saved. Even more could be saved if these prisoners also contributed toward the costs of their fellow inmates through a progressive tax system that resembles the income tax system. If this plan were introduced, states could potentially save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, and crucial public service programs could be spared.