Governor Schwarzenegger gave an alarming speech yesterday, suggesting again that California is in dire straights economically. He now recommends that we have a constitutional amendment saying that we should have automatic cuts when the State goes in the red, and that we should have automatic savings when we have prosperous years so that we can save for a 'rainy day'.
Sounds okay on the surface, but the only reason we need to do that is if we can't raise revenues (taxes). And some of us would argue that we have to get over the mindless mantra that all taxes are bad taxes. We have to pay for State services. We can't simply go decade after decade cutting our real spending on education, for example. I read an article in the LA Times that said we need to reconsider the Property Tax restrictions put in place by Prop 13. Warren Buffet apparently recommended that the governor do this, but it amounts to political suicide to even consider it. Everyone wants something for nothing.
This brings me to the tangential point that a friend and colleague told me last year that we could save lots of money in the state by relaxing our drug laws. As someone who has never, at any point, been into drugs, I didn't take this too seriously at first. But over time, his point has made more and more sense to me. According to the statistics that I've read, California has a prison population of more than 172,000. It costs Californians $8 billion per year. Non-violent drug offenders constitute nearly 21% of that prison population. If that is true, approximately $2 billion per year could be saved if we did not imprison people for drug use. That's not to mention the money that would be saved by not having to prosecute all these cases in the first place.
And it doesn't necessarily follow that eliminating prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses leads to complete legalization of drugs either. Drinking alcohol is legal, but public drunkenness and driving while drunk is not. Similarly, drug use can be regulated through fines and by putting people in jail just long enough for their high to wear off if they've endangered others. Can you imagine what our prison budget would look like if we imprisoned all the heavy drinkers in the state?
3 comments:
But, will eliminating or reducing prison sentences give more of a green light to drug dealers, thus increasing all the problems and costs associated with drugs?
You might be right.
It seems to me that they're having a pretty easy time selling drugs already. I've not looked into this much. I just know that it is said to be the case that the profit would be taken out of drugs if it were legalized, regulated, and taxed.
My point, really, is that I don't think it helps for us to waste a lot of money putting people in prison for possession of small amounts of drugs.
Maybe you've looked into this subject more than I have, Aliman. I'd be glad to hear more about it.
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