We have to wonder if lawmakers in Jackson understand the crisis they are creating.

After seeing its budget cut by more than $8 million for the next fiscal year, the Department of Mental Health said it will close more than 30 psychiatric beds and a chemical dependency program.

The cuts will impact the Mississippi State Hospital, East Mississippi State Hospital, South Mississippi State Hospital and Ellisville State School.

It’s not just Republicans in charge now who are to blame. Democrats didn’t prioritize mental health funding when they were in charge years ago.

But the most recent cuts come when the state is already spending less every year on mental health. Mississippi’s mental health funding declined 10.4 percent between Fiscal Year 2009 and Fiscal Year 2012, according to Sid Salter, who wrote about the problem this week.

Other states have made similar cuts to mental health budgets. It seems the mentally ill are seen as unimportant in other places, too. Sadly, tax breaks and a bond bill appear to take priority over helping this vulnerable population.

The bond bill allows the state to borrow $250 million for a host of projects, some of which are far less important than caring for the mentally ill. For example, there’s $100,000 in the bill for infrastructure improvements that will be used at the Lincoln Civic Center or the new baseball complex.

Are those improvements more important than caring for the mentally ill? Of course not. Could that funding be better used to provide mental health services? Of course. We realize it’s not quite that simple, but if the state doesn’t have the money to provide necessary services, why is it borrowing money to fund pet projects? Why is the state cutting taxes further at the same time it’s cutting budgets for necessary programs?

These decisions make little sense.

Without adequate mental health facilities, the mentally ill are often jailed because there’s nowhere to take them.

The state’s Republican leadership has prided itself on Christian values, and used those values to justify a host of bills this past session. But where are those same values when it comes to caring for the mentally ill?