San Quentin Fiscal Insanity

It is truly amazing that there are so many places in our society where common sense is drowned out by ideology and our flawed political system. In an era of vicious partisan sniping as well as sound-byte-size news coverage and the high cost of purchasing one's own media time, our politicians do not dare risk being labeled "soft on crime." "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" isn't true for them...any strong negative branding can cost them their effectiveness in their jobs as well as re-election.

Thus we end up with boondoggles such as a proposal to build facilities for more death row inmates. The facilities would be costly. More people receiving the death penalty would be incredibly costly.

So while we are killing citizens by denying them health care, denying our children and young adults the education they need to function in the 21st century economy, shrinking our government in a time of severe recession and ending up with less tax revenues and even more deficit to cope with, making other horrific decisions all in the name of needing to save government money...we yet somehow can be forced to endure a big waste of this money?

The first thing we need are better-informed voters, to put the kibosh on projects which make no sense whatsoever.