We're being told by our elected officials to “stay the course!” You've got to be kidding - we're in crisis and taxpayers should be outraged at how our politicians are mismanaging our taxpayers' monies!

Instead of our own Senator Nozzolio articulating a plan for paying down our exorbitant state debit, he's been spending our money as if it's his!

When he got elected, he lobbied hard for 10 new prisons, eight of which were built in his own district. This provided hundreds of new jobs where jobs were scarce.

But then he replaced hundreds of jobs done by inmates for pennies an hour and gave them to highly paid civilians. Hundreds more guards were also hired. (However, taxpayers should be asking why, after so many decades, the ratio to guards to inmates had to change from one guard for every 20 to 30 inmates ... to one guard for every two inmates?)

Recently we learned that four prisons could have been closed because of the significant decline over the past five years in the numbers of prisoners in our state's prisons. (This would have saved taxpayers an estimated $5 million annually.)

His photo, along with several hundred guards on a day's paid leave, appeared in this newspaper. It is a “picture worth a thousand words.” It proves that because of his position as chairman of the Crime and Corrections Committee, he was able to enlist the help of his biggest campaign contributor - the guards' union - to keep those prisons open.

In the private sector, when jobs aren't needed, people are laid off. However, this is not the case for those working in county, state and/or federal jobs because taxpayers must now bow to the whims of politicians - and the influence of unions!

Joan Daubenhauser

Auburn