“HB 211 is a debt trap. It creates a population of people who are, by definition, unable to pay. And then converts that inability into a labor obligation,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. “The ‘streets to success’ framing is deliberate misdirection. No legitimate treatment program requires the patient to work off their bill under threat of incarceration."
I’m morbidly fascinated by how carefully this article avoids using the obvious term. But slavery. It’s slavery. It is a bill that would literally, legally, enslave a population (of predominantly Black men, fucking surprise) for the “crime” of being poor.



No you don’t understand, they are paid in room and board, therefore they are earning a “living wage”. Suck it libs!
/s
If we’re going backwards in history, then I guess the next move is to count each one as only 3/5ths of a person.
Which sounds like a perfectly republican idea for “reducing” the prison population numbers.
Why count them at all?
To get more congressional seats, of course
and to have an other to continually focus the tribal hatred on.