What do you figure a prison guard is worth? Be generous. I'll bet your guess wasn't even close to what these blood-suckers really collect from us taxpayers. What a gyp!
The latest official figures that I've got are for 1995. You know that it's a lot more today. For 1995, here are the Department of Vengeance's official numbers. They claim that there were 11,219 guards and "staff" employed (you can't call it "working") in the Department. We foolish taxpayers paid them $595,818,000.00 in 1995!
If you don't want to do the division, I've done it: $53,100.00 apiece! That's right, on average, we taxpayers pay a prison guard more than $53,000. a year, some more, some less, but that's the average. Are we suckers or what!
This is what I call welfare on a gigantic scale!
The Department of Vengeance wants us taxpayers to believe that the prisoners are costing us a lot of money. Of course, it's just another political lie. The truth is that the guards are getting the big money.
The whole prison "operating" budget is officially claimed to be $933,130,000.00. Now, take away the cream that the guards skim off the top and the prisoners' cut is $337,312,000.
The same official figures say that there were, in 1995, a total of 32,410 prisoners in state captivity. Again, I've done the division. The prisoners cost about $10,240 apiece to feed, house, medicate, beat, drug test, etc.
Ask yourself this: if the prisoners' benefit $10,240, but the guards rake in $53,100, why do the prisons keep growing? Obviously, to give this vast welfare to the guards.
Now another question. Where are these guard jobs? Who are the guards?
Well, where the prisons? Mostly, they are in the rural Republican areas that elect jerks like Ridge and Mike "I like to kill folks" Fisher. The "corrections" budget is really a subsidy to the Republican backwaters which can only survive by oppressing and exploiting others.
Where does the money come from? Again, it's easy. Mostly, it comes out of the cities. The "corrections" budget is a scheme to redistribute the wealth. It flows like water out of the cities and into the Republican rural hinterlands. When the Republicans tell you now you must put more people in to prisons, ask yourself why. Easy, it's a payoff!
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