California Dream Transformed into a Nightmare

NPR had a tremendously important program today about a major contributor to why California's budget problems are so dire.

It's not just Proposition 13. And it's not just the dysfunctional state government. One of the biggest problems in California is the overcrowded prisons that eat more than $10 billion each and every year on a totally broken and overwhelmed system.

The biggest culprit? The tough-on-crime laws that imprison more and more people for longer times without any programs that might break the cycle. Other contributors? The powerful Prison Guard union which lobbies for higher pay for increasingly dangerous duty based on the growing prison population who are facing increasing draconian sentences with no reason to believe anything will ever get better.