A reckoning coming

Speaking of the Williamson Act, it’s worth noting that it was one of the few budget cuts local legislators—Sen. Sam Aanestad and Assemblymen Dan Logue and Jim Nielsen, all Republicans—opposed.

True, they were also against raiding local-government treasuries, which is to their credit, though we can only imagine where they would have come up with the money otherwise. They absolutely refused to consider any tax increases, even on oil extraction and cigarettes, or to eliminate the corporate tax giveaways passed in February that will cost the state $2.5 billion or more annually.

The three men were perfectly OK, however, with standing by in late July as the Legislature and governor slashed $16 billion in funding for education, health care, the state’s welfare-to-work program, children’s health insurance, state workers, domestic-violence centers, programs for the elderly, AIDS prevention and treatment, and state parks.

Indeed, the one time they spoke up was when Gov. Schwarzenegger said a $1.2 billion reduction in prison spending might require releasing prisoners from our drastically overcrowded prisons. His idea was to let some elderly and sick nonviolent prisoners out a few months early and send fewer people to prison for minor parole violations. To hear our lawmakers’ howls of outrage, though, you’d have thought the governor was letting the Manson family loose.

The reason the prisons are so full—170,000 people crammed into space meant for half that many—is because lawmakers like our local trio want to get tough on crime but don’t want to pay for it. As a result, just this week, on Tuesday (Aug. 4), a panel of three federal judges ordered the state to reduce its prison population by more than 40,000 inmates in the next two years. Either build sufficient prisons to house everyone legally or let some prisoners go, the judges said.

Of course, the state has no money to build prisons—unless it decides to raise taxes, something our legislators seem to believe is the work of the devil. Let’s see: Raise taxes or release prisoners early? We know three Republican lawmakers who are going to have a tough choice to make.