Ridiculously Simple

This is a ridiculously simplistic representation of the Colorado State Budget which has dozens of programs and hundreds of line items. I understand the importance of illustrating the constitutional issues that Colorado faces. No one despises TABOR more than I, but if balancing the budget were as simple as raising taxes or eliminating half a department we wouldn't be in this mess. Balancing Colorado's budget woes require us to increase revenue through increased taxes and streamline current services to cut expenses. A good example is "corrections" where we spend $28,000/year/offender on 10,000 offenders only to have 5,000 of the same people return to prison every year. Community corrections, by comparison, has an operating cost that is half the amount of state prisons (approximately $14,000 per person, per year) and returns approximately 2,500 people to the system) while allowing offenders to hold a job so that they can pay restitution and taxes, thereby, increasing state revenues. As a society, are we really so intent on punishing people that we're willing to pay double the amount that is necessary just to see them suffer? If CPR wants me to take this project seriously they're going to have to give me, as a listener and informed taxpayer, a little bit more credit.

Nice theory, but are we really going to let murders and rapists out to "community corrections"? We are going to hope that they change their life and hold a job? We have some pretty bad people in prison, and we put them in prison because we didn't want them on our streets.