State Government
Random Observations
February 7, 2006 
–IDAHO’S DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS is in its usual state of disarray. Director Tom Beauclair tells the legislature he needs money for pay raises, but uses it to rent cells for the overflow of inmates. Meanwhile one in three guards leaves each year. Nothing has changed in over 30 years in this department except the size–more crooks thanks to the growth in population.
–COMMUNITY COLLEGES have suddenly hit the spotlight, but for the wrong reasons. Sounds good to offer college to those who can’t meet the standards, but we fear the REAL reason is there is cash to be had in the name of education. A GUARDIAN reader informs us if there is no Community College within a student’s home county, the student can attend a CC outside the county and the county would be charged up to $1,000 a year under one plan.
–ETHANOL uses more energy than it produces, but the farm lobby continues to push for government mandated use of fuels with 10% farm products blended with gas. The J.R. Simplot Company shut down the only two plants to ever produce ethanol in Idaho because it just didn’t make sense and they used “free” potato waste as the biomass.
Lower priced ethanol is common in Iowa and Minnesota, but it is directly subsidized by the states.
–GAY MARRIAGE is a dead horse the legislature has whipped for three years and it just won’t go away. The legislators should be like the U.S. military: Don’t ask and don’t tell. No amount of legislation will change the views of those men who love other men or women who love other women. Like most everything else, it is the chase for the almighty dollar that is the real issue.
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