On a gut level, I believe most of us know that depriving inmates of breakfast, lunch or dinner is an absurd and mean-spirited way to save money (if it would even save money).

And fortunately for us, our state has clearer-thinking legislators than Radcliffe, so it doesn’t look like his proposal will go anywhere.

The bill, AB 77, would allow a third meal for medical reasons. It was also introduced by state Rep. Chris Danou, a Democrat from Trem-pealeau, and assigned to the committee on criminal justice and corrections earlier this month. Committee chairman Rep. Garey Bies, a Republican, said he personally doesn’t like the bill. Unless he can see some real justification, he won’t give the bill a hearing, and it won’t make it out of his committee.

“I’d like to have the author go run a jail for a while and he’d find out,” said Bies, “that the only thing the inmates look forward to are three meals a day. And if we pull one out of there we’re going to run into all kinds of issues in trying to keep the jail calm.”

Bies would know. For 30 years, he worked in the Door County Sheriff’s Department and was the chief deputy for the past 11 of those, overseeing the whole department, which included the jail.