It appears that some Californians are not too pleased with the budget deal that was reached yesterday, specifically due to the fact that it seems many inmates are going to be released early from prison. The deal that was struck was meant to finally bridge the $26.3 billion dollar budget gap that the state of California now has. The deficit would be reduced through a mix of cuts to social services, prisons, budgetary tricks and some increased oil drilling (finally). The LA Times reports:
Less than 24 hours after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders announced a plan to close California’s massive budget deficit, Los Angeles County officials moved to sue the state, a union for government workers said it might strike, and Republicans threatened to back out of the deal over a provision to cut the number of prison inmates by 27,000.
Apparently it is mostly Republicans who are upset about the imminent release of 27,000 convicted inmates, in particular GOP Assembly leader Sam Blakeslee. In order for the deal to pass the Assembly will have to have at least some Republican support because under the California Constitution budgets must have 2/3 support to pass. However, if the budget deal does fail to pass there may be plenty of blame to go around. There are plenty provisions in the deal that the liberals are not happy about, especially the fact that there will be deep budget cuts to social programs and the largest union in the state . . . the teachers union. Thousands of teachers will get the axe should the budget deal pass.
At this point though, what choice do you have California? The simple fact of the matter is that if you were a private citizen you would have already been forced into bankruptcy. Your wonton use of IOUs as a pseudo currency strikes me as a dubious solution, particularly since at some point those IOUs are going to come due, with interest, thus putting your state more in the hole. Yes, there is a lot not to like about this budget deal, but in drastic times you must take drastic measures.
If you want my 2 cents, it seems one easy solution here is to just decriminalize marijuana. The state spends billions on incarcerating, prosecuting and enforcing marijuana laws. Even if you don’t want to legalize it, decriminalize it and you could save yourself billions right there. If you were wise, you could legalize the weed and then tax the crap out of it brining billions more into the state coffers. Plus, you’d put a lot of bad guys who come over the borders to cause trouble out of business.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Hey great call Bryan, now you’re speaking my language. If you don’t waste time in the first place throwing non-violent people in jail for their politically incorrect choice of intoxicant, you don’t spend money on them and eventually have to turn around and let them out — after they’ve become associated with the harder side of criminality while in prison.
While decriminalization would be a huge step forward, I think keeping the sales illegal still leaves us with some thorny issues. A lion’s share of the profits for Mexican cartels and other organized crime elements comes from the production and sale of marijuana. These are the murderers, the kidnappers, the folks destroying national forest land for their crops. As long as the sale remains illegal, it will be left up to people like that to furnish the demand for marijuana, and they will be awarded the resulting profits. The cycle of violence continues.
Still though, I’m with you here obviously Bryan. Hopefully The Terminator is listening.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Oh! Come on these Californians are idiots that have been spoiled by there government. I want all of these politicians to say we can’t afford it thus we can’t have it. Are dollar is going to become completely valueless in the next couple of years. And our country will have a 20 trillion dollar deficit by 2020, because the spending made by the liberals is uncontrollable. Were trillions in debt and obama is going to increase it. Clinton only had a surplus for one reason, because he raised taxes. And he got lucky, because if we didn’t have the tech boom Clinton would of been like Carter. Now obama unless the robot boom starts soon is doomed. Also to California can you believe 700,000 people pay 50% of the taxes. Now they spend all of this money on crap for crime,education, and there hippie green agenda. You know we should get a little old lady to run the Treasure, because they know how to balance a budget and the get surplus that’s why they can retire. Why the hell can’t they just say we can’t afford it.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 am
I had no idea that premature prisoner release was apart of this proposal. This footage looks at the budget crisis from the points of view of local state governments and citizens.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/the_golden_state_not_so_golden
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am
Lets let violent criminals out of jail to roam free in California and cut thousands of teacher jobs and continue to WASTE BILLIONS trying to stop people from using a plant that is less harmful than alcohol and continue to drive our state into the hole, and continue to let thousands die needlessly over marijuana prohibition.
Because that is SO MUCH better than treating our tax paying citizens like adults and letting them make the choice weather or not to use marijuana, and taxing it and saving billions in search, arresting, prosecuting, jailing, ect……
WHAT A JOKE
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Gray Davis is looking good right about now.