It was the 90's. Suddenly even the best people became addle-brained. Nobody was interested in preventing crime anymore. Nobody was interested in correcting the causes of crime. Nobody was interested in getting rid of the stupid laws that made criminals out of decent people.
It was the 90's and the silly "conservative" pendulum of retribution was swinging toward the extreme of irrationality. Like some bizarre infection of the brain, decent folks had become religious bigots bent upon a crusade of hatred.
The mania was almost unbelievable. Instead of spending a few bucks to prevent crime, the fanatics of the new right spent billions to PUNISH because, as they said, that's what the offender "deserved." Like most twisted zealots, the control-freaks had lost sight of what the society deserved.
The obsession was to build prisons and to hurt people who were "bad." The whole focus of the psychology was to injure "offenders." The fanatics didn't really care how much their mania hurt the whole society.
In 1993 and 1994 the politicians who pandered to the mania resolved to build more and more prisons to punish offenders. The taxpayers might be getting a little wacko, but they'd never stand still for the enormous cost of the prisons. To hide the true costs from the taxpayers, the fanatics had bonds issued. They would sell the bonds and use the income to build punishment centers. The taxpayers would be stuck with paying back three times the value of the bonds because of the large interest the bonds pay.
How many bonds were the punisher-fanatics going to sell? $1,900,000,000.00 worth! How much would the scheme cost taxpayers? About $500 a head for every man, woman and child in the state! Paying for fanaticism ain't easy! And that's just to build the torture chambers, not to operate them!
In order to get people to buy the bonds, the state made them tax-exempt. The investor not only earned the interest, but she (many of the bond buyers were women who were delighted to have men locked up) didn't have to pay any taxes on the interest. It was gravy! The taxpayers took up the slack!
But, this is Pennsylvania and this is the era of fanatic obsessions. After the bonds were sold and the punishment-prisons were being built, it turned out that, in their mania to get the dirt done, the bonds were improperly handled and federal tax money was getting used.
IRS cracked down. Because of the illegal practices, the Commonwealth was going to have to pay fines and extra taxes; a LOT of extra taxes. The bonds would lose their tax-exempt status. The blue-haired ladies gloating over their blood-money would be miffed at the Commonwealth and wouldn't buy it's bonds any more.
So, here we are 4 years later. The fanatics got their prisons, the offenders got hurt and the taxpayers got the shaft. That's how it is when the conservatives are allowed to feed you a line of shit. You end up with a bad taste in your mouth!
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