While this would do little to assuage the problems created by housing prisoners in-state but hundreds of miles from their families, I'd like to see a Balanced Penal Bill in which any addition to the list of crimes punishable by prison time, or any increase in the minimum amount of time a prisoner would have to serve for a crime, must be balanced by an increase in the budget for prisons. I realize this goes against a fundamental dubious assumption behind increasing criminal penalties -- the greater the punishment, the less likely someone is to commit the crime -- but it might give tuff-on-crime yet anti-tax-and-spend politicians a moment of critical thought about whether one can have everything one wants.