Say for the costs of $150 billion a year on illegal immigration, we could build many facilities for the mentally ill.
And here I would like to see Treason charges brought and see a a hanging gallows on the National Mall.
If all unpaid taxes were paid we could do a lot of things. But Musk is cutting the IRS, which if you owe taxes is good news.
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/breaking-down-the-federal-tax-gap/
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Not really related but as long as we are dreaming about stuff like that ā¦
Letās have campaign reform that really is reform. Make bribery a crime again; kill Citizens United, put a blue collar level limit on campaign contributions, prohibit receiving contributions from any person or source other than a registered voter in a candidateās district, prohibit PACs from contributing cash, kind, or even mention the name of any candidate. Make voting easy, fast, and pain free for every citizen.
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Arenāt there rules that say fat ass people shouldnāt be hanged because it might get messy?
Broken Windows Policing is a powerful crime reduction tactic, and I advocate using it for places like Seattle. But I am a realist. Itās only practical at certain places at certain times.
Broken windows policing speeds up the breaking of crime epidemics and areas of deep-seated criminality. Itās like the spot remover spray you apply to an oil stain on your clothes before you wash it. But it gets very expensive if you apply it everywhere all the time.
In the 1980s both NYC and Seattle had very high rates of crime. Far higher than today. I remember it distinctly. NYC enacted broken- windows policing. Seattle did not. The crime rates plummeted in the 1990s in both cities at roughly the same rate. As it did all throughout the country.
Crime would have fallen in NYC without BWP but the rate of the fall would likely have been much slower because crime was more entrenched. BWP was a powerful agent to speed up the process. And expensive.
I advocate for doubling the Seattle PD from 900 cops to 1800 in order to practice BWP. The 1,800 police figure just makes it an average size police force on a per capita basis.
Right now the SPD costs $400 mil/ year. Double it , add in a proportionally increased justice system, and youāre looking at $900 million a year to be supported by 700,000 citizens.
1800 police practicing BWP would cut crime by at least 80%. The financial offset is that property losses would be reduced by at least $400 million. So increased policing pays for itself to a degree.
But citizens have short memories. What happens five, ten years down the road when crime rates are a small fraction of what they are now and we still have a 1,800 member police force and robust justice system drawing a billion a year?
Iāll tell you what happens. The extremists at both ends of the political spectrum will call for reductions. Progressives will say, Look at the lazy no-good police doing nothing but hassling godās angels! And the MAGAs will say, Look at those lazy no-good government workers sitting on their asses!
The police force will get cut and the cycle will start again.
But we live in today and have to solve todayās problems.
(BTW, Seattleās murder rate had been increasing until recently but never approached 1990s levels. It is not in the top 20 of US cities. Tulsa, Indianapolis , and Atlanta have higher rates of homicide than Seattle.
Seattleās big crime problem is an epidemic of shoplifting and auto-related crimes fomented by organized gangs tied to the drug trade, using addicts as thieves, which began in 2022.)
If we implemented a flat tax, the IRS could operate with 1/100th of itās current work force. Change of subject but in same context - look at how the USDAās ranks have swollen while the number of farms have severely shrunk. Again, why do we need to keep increasing the government? Dept of ED as well. Why have a federal department when each state can implement their own guidelines and have parallel departments on a state level. Because weālve let these parasitic departments keep growing,we now have things like common core and results like Baltimore - Out of 20 schools tested, not a single kid was reading at his/her/they grade level.
I hate to say it, but we need re-institutionalize the mentally ill. Keep them safely locked up, in treatment, on birth control, and out of sight.
Something similar for the druggies and alcoholics. Effective long term drug and alcohol treatment under lock and key in a remote drug and alcohol free environment, that is out of sight. Paid for by taxes on big pharma and the alcohol and tobacco industries.
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I agree 100% . Many countries still do this . The hospitals are government funded and there is one in most major cities. They are diagnosed, treated and when it is determined they are able to do so released. Medicine is provided after release free of charge or reduced prices until they gain employment. In the US it is hard to get mental health treatment even if you have insurance so they live on the streets. The police have become the mental health system.
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How to handle Mental Health treatment is a problem in other developed countries as well, incl.in Europe.
Here is a WHO article about how it is handled there:
PS> Of course all countries in Europe have universal health care so the problem of paying for treatment by those individuals who seek treatment is not an issue.
Nobody need to go without, or sleep in the street because they cannot afford treatment.
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I agree.
The issue is a number of Supreme Court rulings that make it very difficult. The ruling that emptied a lot of mental hospitals in the late 1970s was this one:
Immediately after that ruling, mental hospitals began to be shutdown. Some of the hospitals were good. Some were awful. The public only thought about the awful ones, and were glad to see all of them go. Also, glad to stop funding them. They were expensive.
Right after that is when the term āhomelessā became a thing. As a kid and young adult I never heard the word before until the early 1980s.
Plenty of homeless people arenāt mentally ill but plenty are. When the mental hospitals were shut down the inmates were tossed in the streets. And that changed the character of what had been called vagrants or just āthe poorā into this new class called āhomelessā.
There were mental hospitals all over, and many in rural counties, because the hospitals were a source of rural income, just as many prisons are today. But when they were emptied the patients were quickly dumped into the big cities by the smaller towns. They ended up in the slums.
The mentally ill are easy marks for the drug trade, and helped it flourish.
Then with gentrification in the 1980s came slum clearance. Remove the slums and the homeless live on the street.
To reverse part of all this, Supreme Court precedent needs to be changed. Very difficult.
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From immigration to nut cases that is an interesting thread evolution . Here is my contribution :
" you are not more crazy then the average guy on the street"
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I thought we were investing in federal institutions for the mentally ill (Congress)!
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