OkieBrent's Soapbox

In today’s Oklahoman (11/25/2009) Michael McNutt reports that Republican State Representative Dennis Johnson of Duncan says that one of the first bills to be considered in the next legislative session will be one to increase penalties for gang-related activities.  Senate Bill 826 will make recruiting gang members a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Gangs are bad, but is this really what we need to focus on right now?  The State of Oklahoma is laying off teachers, starving seniors, furloughing employees, reducing the number of law enforcement officials – all because of a lack of MONEY.  Representative Johnson wants the state to spend more money we don’t have.

Keep in mind these numbers are from 2005, but according to the Department of Corrections Oklahoma spends more than $20,000 per year per prisoner.   Sixty percent of those prisoners are non-violent.

Oklahoma spends less than half that amount – only $7,615 – on each student per year.  I guess Oklahomans value prisoners more than they do educating our children.

Maybe if Oklahoma prioritized education and students above prisons and inmates, there would be fewer youth even considering joining a gang, fewer drop-outs, and less crime.

What is a better incentive to attract new businesses and jobs – lots of prisoners or a well educated population?  Of course for most businesses and industries a well educated work force is much more attractive, but maybe legislators like Rep. Johnson are only trying to attract more private prisons.

Lots of pain.  Here is a sampling of what the continuous mantra and action of “cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes” and the worst recession since the Great Depression has lead to:

• state Board of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services – board met last week and discussed plans to reduce its staff by 100 jobs and cut services and programs. The agency took action to cut $7.3 million from its budget in the wake of declining state revenues. Read the story here.

• Ethics Commmission – The state agency that is charged with policing political campaigns will be furloughing staff members right in the middle of the 2010 election cycle if current budget projections hold up.  Read the story here.  

• Career Tech – The Oklahoma Board of Career and Technology Education approved a voluntary buyout plan Thursday for its employees in the wake of declining state revenue – the board anticipates that 30 employees will take the buyout. Read the story here.  

• Public Schools – If funding cuts get any steeper, the Edmond School District will have to let go of teachers next year, Edmond school officials said this week.  Read the story here.

• Seniors – $7.4 million in funding cuts to senior nutrition programs – many may be forced into nursing homes, 97,744 meals not delivered in Tulsa County, 3 Oklahoma County sites closed, Canadian County $27,364 already cut with sites closing an extra day each week, Cleveland County $36,006 cut with one site closed and another serving meals only 3 days a week, etc. etc. etc.  Read the story here.

• Public Safety – Budget cuts are proving particularly troubling for prosecutors and others who enforce state laws. … Oklahomans also will see fewer Highway Patrol troopers and might have to wait longer to renew a driver’s license, said Kevin Ward, the commissioner for public safety. Read the story here.  

I’ve been gone to Sequin, Texas this past week.  My mother’s oldest brother passed away.  I went down with my mom, two sisters and a brother-in-law.  I thought that I’d be able to organize many of my thoughts on many timely issues on the long drive down and back and over the few nights in the hotel room.  But it didn’t happen.  As it should have been, most of my time was spent with family members, some of which I hadn’t seen in years.

My uncle, Garland Cummins, had one of the best senses of humor of anyone I’ve ever met.  He was an electrician who had been a plant manager for a gypsum plant, he was a Korean War veteran, and he was a Jehovah’s Witness.  Since returning, I’ve thought about family and how short life truly is.  We really don’t have much time to waste, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the bills that our state legislators are passing.

Our country is in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  However, the issues being addressed by the State House and State Senate will do little or nothing to help average Oklahomans.  While the crisis is not as bad in Oklahoma as in many other areas of the country, it will certainly hit us harder soon enough.  Yet, instead of addressing the economic woes, our legislators are wasting time debating and passing senseless bills to allow a Ten Commandments monument at the State Capitol, to make English the official language, and to require photo IDs for voters.

While Oklahoma’s legislators are wasting time on bullshit, California’s legislators are trying to come up with real solutions to their state’s economic woes.  California is considering legalizing marijuana and taxing it just like alcohol and tobacco.  They estimate it would bring in more than $1 Billion extra per year.  Makes sense to me.

When I was in college I wrote a 20 page report on marijuana laws in the United States.  Oklahoma had the strictest laws of all 50 states, perhaps that is why Oklahoma taxpayers spend more than $1.3 million per day on corrections [see this post for more on that issue].   At the time I wrote that paper, marijuana was also Oklahoma’s largest cash crop.  My research showed that most of the confiscated weeds were actually wild stuff growing naturally on its own – not some high-grade herb cultivated and harvested by Oklahomans.

What is even more ridiculous about our marijuana laws is the part that also outlaws growing hemp, marijuana’s cousin that has no mind-altering effects.  Bible-believing Oklahomans should believe that hemp and marijuana are creations of God.  They truly are miracle-like plants, having hundreds of practical uses.

The original Constitution of the United States is written on hemp paper.  Our soldiers’ uniforms of the past were made of hemp cloth.  Our Navy’s rope and sails were also made of hemp.  Diesel and oil can be derived from hemp.  It will grow anywhere, from Alaska to Florida.  And unlike wheat or cotton, both of which deplete the soil of nutrients, hemp replenishes nutrients to the soil.

But what am I thinking?  That makes common sense, something our legislators are lacking.

This past January, using Boone Pickens The Pickens Plan website, I sent emails to both our United States Senators and my member of Congress, Tom Cole, encouraging them to support President Obama’s stimulus bill.  Earlier this week, I received a response letter back from Congressman Cole.

His letter was about 1 ½ pages long explaining why he voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The part that really struck me as needing a response back (which he will receive from me soon) is the following section.  Congressman Cole wrote: 

“The House just voted to spend 300 percent more on this legislation than was spent in all of World War II, and a staggering 1,200 percent more than was spent during the New Deal.  Moreover, this single bill will cost more than all the money spent on the war in Iraq.”

 Let me take on those three points individually.

1. World War II ended in 1945.  According to an article written in 2004 entitled The Silent March of Inflation by Lowell Miller, “Since 1945, prices, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, have risen over 900%”

Keep in mind this article is 5 years old, and prices have continued to rise in those 5 years.  Miller continues: 

“Chart 1 shows the “progress” of inflation since World War II. What it shows, very simply, is that if you could buy a product or service for $100 in 1945, by 2005 you would have to spend $1045.40 to get the same product or service. If your investments did not rise by over 1000% during that period, you actually lost money, adjusted for inflation.

“You might say that a loaf of bread in 1945 became a slice of bread by 2005, in terms of what you get for a depreciated dollar, or how many extra dollars you would need to account for increased costs. An automobile became a chassis and two tires. A whole hog became a package of bacon. A chandelier became a night light. Your $100,000 was transformed into just $9,563 of purchasing power by rising prices for everything.”

2. FDR’s New Deal was initiated between 1933 and 1938.  According to the Inflation Calculator at InflationData.com, from January 1935 to January 2009, the inflation rate is 1,452.52%.

3. The War in Iraq.  The war in Iraq was unnecessary and probably the biggest mistake ever made by a President and Congress of the United States.  Wasted lives, wasted money, wasted international good will, wasted time, wasted, wasted, wasted.  And Congressman Cole supported it all over and over.  And the waste continues on with Congressman Cole’s support.

That is how much Oklahoma taxpayers spend every day on criminal corrections.  Yesterday the Pew Center on the States released a report showing that spending on criminal corrections by the states is outpacing everything with the exception of Medicaid.

From the New York Times today:

“One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation,” a new Pew Center on the States study reports. State spending on prisons quadrupled over the last 20 years, despite the fact that crime dropped 25 percent during that time. “Criminal correction spending is outpacing budget growth in education, transportation and public assistance. … Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending.”

Something has to change, especially now that we find ourselves in this economic downward spiral. 

In 1982, Oklahoma corrections controlled 1 in 90 adults, today it is 1 in 42 adults.  Do we really have that many more criminals, or have our state and nation just made more things unlawful with mandated prison time?  Zero tolerance is an expensive position which Oklahoma and the United States can no longer afford.

“Most states are facing serious budget deficits,”said Susan Urahn, managing director of The Pew Center on the States. ”Every single one of them should be making smart investments in community corrections that will help them cut costs and improve outcomes.”

Oklahoma Correctional Population, Year End 2007

Rate of Correctional Control:     1 in 42 adults

Total Correctional Population:     65,720

Probation:     26,038

Parole:     2,349

Jail:     9,748

Prison:     23,957

Federal Prisoners:     3,628

For the full report, click here:

For one-page summary on Oklahoma, click here: