Saturday, April 21, 2007

Want new prisons? Why not just take the money from blind children?

Taking a cue from reports at the Texas Observer blog and Grits, this 90-second YouTube submission from a former offender turned activist offers a safe-for-work satirical look at the Texas Senate's plan for taking money from the Texas School for the Blind to build new prisons:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think they should NOT build new prisons. They don't have the staff to staff the prison they have nnow. they should give the money back to the blind children. find the money to keep the therputic communities open. may the senatoers need to take a pay cut. what da ya'll think

JT Barrie said...

Why not make ALL legisliars - including the ones who passed the feel good legislation that caused the original overcrowding - take a pay cut. Retroactively take away the very generous "retirement" benefits funded by taxpayers to legislators who serve a mere six years? A friend of mine explained how this works and while the base pay is a pittance, one can live handsomely off retirement benefits. One way to do this without running into the ex post facto principle [those who suspend Habeas Corpus with impunity shouldn't worry about that] is to use that "retirement income" as an offset to other income derived from other governmental sources such as Social Security, military pensions, or disability benefits.