Alabama facing Budget Crisis too! [View all]

Alabama's government - and by that I mean your government - is in serious financial trouble.

The state budget that pays the freight to put state troopers on the roads to help protect us, that pays the cost to keep criminals behind bars, that pays the cost to provide the only real medical care the poor and sometimes the old in Alabama receive, is in deep trouble.

How deep? The immediate hole is about $260 million. But the real hole, the deeper one in long term cost is $700 million.

The deep red ink is threatening the very ability of the state to meet basic services, such as allowing you to renew your driver's licenses in a timely way. More seriously, it threatens to make state prisons - already in crisis due to overcrowding and years of sexual abuse by some guards of female inmates - even more dangerous for inmates and yes, correctional officers. And critical health services provided through Medicaid could face cuts that could likely result in the sick becoming sicker.

But don't worry. Republican members of the Alabama House of Representatives have come up with a plan. Kinda.

They want to reinstitute electrocuting death row prisoners should the current practice of lethal injection be ruled unconstitutional or if the poison drugs needed to carry out the killings are unavailable. Who knew "Yellow Mama"--the nickname given long ago to Alabama's electric chair--could be used to help solve a budget crisis.

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