In case you were worried that Harrisburg has been exhibiting unusual levels of competency lately, never fear. Our General Assembly clearly hasn’t forgotten how to follow up a good idea — like getting the budget process started early — with one that quickly dispels notions of change.

On the same day state House members voted overwhelmingly to propose a bare-bones budget that cuts even deeper into government than the one Gov. Tom Wolf floated in February, they also voted to take a step back in time and reinstitute mandatory minimum sentences for certain violent crime and drug offenses.

This isn’t the first time House members have tried pushing an ill-conceived and short-sighted “tough-on-crime” bill. But we continue to hope it will be the last.

It’s as if legislators aren’t paying attention to the facts. The so-called “War on Drugs” has been a complete failure. Its cost — in money, in lives, in the ties that bind communities together — has been outrageous. Its only legacy is prison populations that have strained federal and state budgets and buggered the concept of efficacy.

State crime and incarceration rates have been in decline for years now, but Pennsylvania’s tab for keeping nearly 50,000 inmates behind bars continues to exceeded $2 billion, making it the commonwealth’s third-highest expense. Additionally, the percentage of inmates entering the system with opioid problems has gone from 6 percent to 12 percent in the last decade.

By now you’re surely thinking: “The Eagle remembers Pennsylvania is in the middle of an opioid crisis, right? Aren’t harsh punishments for dealers a good way to limit supplies of these deadly drugs?”

Rest assured, that fact hasn’t slipped our minds. But it seems it might have slipped those of lawmakers who support this bill. Here’s a partial rundown of what would change for certain drug offenders under the House proposal:

- A two year increase to the minimum sentence for a first conviction on cocaine possession and dealing.

- A one year increase to the minimum sentence for a first conviction on marijuana possession and dealing.

- Precisely no change in minimum sentences for a first conviction on possession or dealing in heroin, meth, or dealing drugs in or near a school zone.

So plenty of new, tough measures focused on drugs and crimes that have absolutely nothing to do with the present crisis — not to mention the fact that mandatory minimums for first-time, non-violent drug offenders fly in the face of common sense and scientific data. A 2009 report by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing found that mandatory minimums have led to only one thing: higher costs for taxpayers.

Isn’t the point to put these people’s lives back on track? How does sending them to state prison, where they would likely be associating with hardened criminals for years on end, serve that purpose?

How does it serve the goal of trimming down a stressed-out state budget that is grappling with a multi-billion-dollar structural deficit?

Pennsylvania needs funding for drug treatment programs, prison reform and common sense drug laws and sentencing guidelines that give judges the flexibility to use alternative systems to keep first time offenders out of the prison system.

This bill contains none of those things. Lawmakers should send it directly to the legislative trash heap, where it belongs.