The Crocodile is Back
Krayton Kerns
7.26.07
It’s been 61 days and the crocodile is back. Whose turn to feed it?
On Friday July 13th, I traveled to Helena for the organizational meeting of the Law and Justice Interim Committee. Prior to opening the public hearing, each legislator introduced themselves and glowingly reported how thrilled they were to return to Helena. I sat quietly. It’s been a couple months since the special session and I wasn’t all that excited to be back. After the budget beating conservatives took this May, the only rosy news I could offer was my night terrors had nearly stopped and I could finally sleep most nights without wetting the bed. I introduced myself and said, “I am on this committee because I voted ‘No’ on each of these study bills when they came before the House during the regular session.” The crowd chuckled and the hearing began.
Over the next 14 months, 11 legislators under the chairmanship of Senator Dan McGee will study adult and juvenile prison population growth issues. We will spend a smidgen over $50,000 to accomplish this task. Whether we will create legislation that corrects these problems or just flush another 50 grand of the taxpayer’s money down the sewer is uncertain.
Here is the problem: With an offender’s population growth of 24.5% since 2002, Montana’s Department of Corrections currently supervises over 12,000 criminals. The ’07 legislature increased the corrections budget $103 million (41%) to a total of $355 million. Now we find this wasn’t enough money. The crocodile is hungry and it must be fed. How do we fix this?
It would be simple to blame Corrections Director Mike Ferriter for fiscal mismanagement. Politically that is easy however; I think it is also wrong. Mr. Ferriter strikes me as a responsible man addressing the task at hand with the assets available. His is not an easy job. The problem lies elsewhere.
The tax-and-spend socialists on this committee will likely claim this is an issue of an under-funded need and will clamor to expand the correction’s budget even further. The special session has proven that any extra money taxpayers send to Helena will be spent. Liberals explain away the failures of bigger government by offering that failure occurs because government is just not big enough. You must send more.
It is my opinion the expanding corrections population is a symptom of a problem that will never be fixed with confiscatory taxes. The reasons are two:
1) For 40 years the secular-progressive socialists have steadily replaced God with an omnipotent central government. Although He is mentioned throughout the founding documents of our country, He is no longer welcome in the minds of our schoolchildren. Americans no longer serve Him; they serve the government and themselves.
2) In the mid-60’s President Johnson’s Great Society expanded government influence by replacing the role of fathers and grandfathers in the American family with assistance programs. Just like the illusion of security our Indian populations were offered in the late 1800s, residents of inner city ghettos were offered the lollipop of socialism. They took it. Now they are plagued with illegitimacy, illiteracy, substance abuse, crime and unemployment. These Americans appear disproportionately over represented in the corrections population and liberals beat that racist drum incessantly. In reality, it is the helplessness created by compassionate socialist give-a-ways that has destroyed the self-reliance and self-respect of these communities. Exchanging freedom for security creates a dependency that kills you ever so slowly all the while you dutifully lick the hand of the master that tosses you the food scraps. Begging for more becomes a way of life.
We have burgeoning corrections populations because of the liberal-led destruction of the American family and the removal of God from our lives. Will these interim studies consider that point? I doubt it. The battle for freedom continues…and it appears we are losing.
