A piece of legislation being pushed by Democrats in Rhode Island is so absurd that many thought it was a hoax, Fox News reports.

The legislation, though, which looks to significantly increase the taxes of residents who fail to comply with a coronavirus vaccine mandate, is not a hoax. It is very, very real.

Rhode Island’s S. 2552

This bill was first introduced by Rhode Island state Sen. Sam Bell (D) in March. It has a coronavirus vaccine mandate, and it has penalties for failure to comply with the mandate.

The mandate requires that “every person of at least sixteen years of age who is eligible for immunization against COVID-19 and who resides in the State of Rhode Island, works in the State of Rhode Island, or pays personal income taxes to the State of Rhode Island . . . to be immunized against COVID-19.”

The mandate also requires a coronavirus vaccine for those eligible who are under 16 years of age, and it places the legal responsibility for this on “all parents or guardians with medical consent powers.”

The bill goes on to state the penalties. One of the penalties is for non-compliant individuals to pay “twice the amount of personal income taxes as would otherwise be assessed.”

Another penalty is a “monthly civil penalty of fifty dollars.” And, yet another penalty is a $5,000 monthly fine for employers who refuse to require proof of vaccination.

“An internet hoax”?

S. 2552 recently went viral after it was discovered by Laurie Gaddis Barrett, a Rhode Island mother who has made it a mission of hers to fend off government overreach.

Barrett appeared on the Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight where she revealed that the people of Rhode Island, after learning about the bill, began calling their representatives to ask whether it was real.

Barrett said:

I couldn’t believe it. I never dreamed, never dreamed that I would find a bill like that introduced into the Rhode Island legislature. And as a matter of fact, the representatives that we spoke with later on told me that they had constituents calling them left and right to ask if it was real or if it was an internet hoax.

Unfortunately, the bill is very real. Bell, in fact, just made another push for the bill’s passage on April 18, 2022, suggesting that there is support for it by stating, “Rhode Islanders still strongly support a universal vaccine mandate.”

The good news in all of this is that Bell has not been able to get support for the bill. But, the fact that he introduced it, thinking that he could get it passed, shows the dangerous times that we are living in here in the U.S.