I voted against the California recall and for the incumbent administration when ot happened. I felt that the whole process was an extremely expensive and bad joke on the California people. The punchline to that joke was the candicacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's taken quite some time, but he's actually "done" something that I can agree with. This section of the < a href="http://www.report.cpr.ca.gov/index.htm">California Performance Review Report titled
Explore Open Source Alternatives is the first notable thing I can get behind.
I'm still very worried about the financials of the state, especially when it comes to our failing education system, but this is one smart move.
Now if we can only get them to spend more money on schools than prisons we could get somewhere. Here's a couple of ideas to throw back at Arnold:
1. Send foreign criminals back to their own countries. Let
them keep those felons off their own streets.
2. Release anyone who is jailed for posession of Marijuana today, this minute, no... do that yesterday.
3. Non-violent repeat offenders need treatment not punishment. This is a tough one because burglars and car theives do these things for a reason. Find out what it is and we can help solve their problems. A cure is much cheaper than the rotating door of prison for these guys. The thing is, in many of these cases, poverty and a lack of job skills are the root cause of the criminal behavior. Many go to jail and bocome better theives with better connections, also they learn to escalate the types of crimes to one day become violent.
There's more, but that's just 3 things to do that could free up some money and help get the state back on track in that one area.
It would be a huge help if FERC would get us our money back from the power problems of '01 but I'm fairly sure
that won't happen.