Hal's post over at Hellblazer caught my eye. WARNING: Hal is freer with profanity on his blog than I am here, so if you don't want to see any "dirty words" — let's just say that Hal's blog is not for you.

At any rate, Hal links to this CNN Money report on TXU Energy wanting to charge higher utility rates to people with lower credit scores. Not surprisingly, Hal thinks this is a magnificently bad idea. Me, I'm not so good on the instant analysis, so I wanted to think about it for a bit, and while Hal and I discussed it briefly in the comments to this post, I hadn't had time to sit down and read the CNN story and think through it.

I guess it's the old high school debate team in me, but I try to think through both sides of signficant questions, just to make sure I'm not missing something. And as I thought through this, I compared it to, say, poor drivers and insurance. These folks, as a group, are actuarially proven to cost the insurance company more in claims, so they pay higher premiums. Older people are more likely to die sooner, so they pay higher life insurance premiums. People who have poor credit scores are more likely to default on loans, get behind in utility payments, skip our of town or whatever. So why shouldn't they pay more, to account for the higher costs they impose on the system?

Okay, all you flaming pinko commie liberals out there, calm down. Don't cause yourself a heart attack. I just haven't gotten to the other side of the discussion yet. Chill.

It's not quite as simple as the end of that paragraph, though. There are many situations where we spread the "risk" out among everyone. Those on the positive end of the scale subsidize those on the negative end of the scale, although society has tended to move away from that approach. Such as, in telephone service, when I was a kid and into my early adulthood, business phone users subsidized residential users. But the breakup of AT&T (Was that twenty years ago? Oh, my!) and deregulation have turned phone service into a mostly pay-as-you-go system.

Taxes are another area where, not only do we not charge based on consumption, but we move to the other end of the scale with our progressive indices so that those who have more, pay more. Personally, I think we've gone a bit too far in that direction, but I agree with the basic principle behind our tax structure. I mostly wish it were much simpler, but not as simple as a flat tax.

So what do I think about TXU's proposal? In the end, I have to combine the rational and emotional and say, "Hands off, TXU." Poor credit scores may mean it's more likely that a customer may fall behind in their payments, but let's make those that actually cause the problem pay the commensurate fees. Late payment fees, maybe interest on unpaid amounts, whatever is appropriate for recouping lost revenue for those that responsible for it. But charge them more right out of the box, just because the possibility that they might fail to pay a bill on time?

I just gotta say, "Nope." Bad idea. And if the Texas Public Utility Commission approves, or fails to stop this TXU proposal, they're failing in their duty.