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Valley Firms Push California Oil Tax
isabotage3 writes, "Still smarting from California's recent enactment of emissions caps, the oil industry is confronting another assault in the Golden State — this one bankrolled in part by Silicon Valley tycoons pushing to fund conservation and alternative-energy initiatives with a tax on oil output. Slightly more than half the money raised by the Prop 87 tax would be earmarked to help cut gasoline and diesel use. Another 27 percent would be put toward alternative-energy research at California universities. The remainder would be used to help start-ups, retrain energy workers in new fields, and for administration." Oil companies claim the backers of Prop 87, some of them venture capitalists, would profit from state money flowing into the alternative-energy projects they are funding.
Anyway, this new tax should free up general funds for prisons and prison guards, which burned through about 7.5 billion dollars in 2005. So there is that.
That way we can expand the number of weed busts and add to the prison population.
(Last year) 700,000 busted for possession (DOJ Number)
Cost to house, $27,000 a year (DOJ published average)
Total cost $18,900,000,000.00 to house them for a year. Why don't we repeal the weed laws and spend the 18,900,000,000.00 on alternative fuels?
I think my 18 trillion beats your 7.5 billion