Does anyone else have a problem with the "Laws and polices" section? From practically the first hour of the game I was able to have, happiness, freedom, knowledge, Safety, and magic maxed out and unable to move health and faith at all. I thought that just came later and I'd have to build buildings or something for them. Then I built a police station and thought "Oh I can probably save some gold by lowering the funding for safety from High to medium." So I did but the next time I showed up safety was dropping to the mid point. So I immediately put funding back on high. It didn't help, next time safety was at the bottom. I tried putting on curfew and harsh punishments and it still stays on the bottom no matter how long I wait. I love the game and hate to bitch about it but this is infuriating me more then it should.
It's been a while since I did this part, but let's see what I can recall.
Health takes a lot of effort to raise. IIRC, you need to build a few civic buildings before it budges at all, maybe the clinic and the bathhouse?
I never tried to raise faith. I made a country of atheists.
I don't recall safety causing any problems for me, but I also never lowered its funding from high. I'll fire up the game and see what happens when I do.
[edit]
some observations:
The change in safety is determined by the "[FLP]Safety gain/loss" variable. In my current save, the value is 10.
Every step on the police funding is worth 2 points. Harsh punishments are worth 3 points, lowering the drinking age costs 4 points, and cancelling the curfew costs 8. Allowing drugs costs 4 points, but banning them again only gave me 3.
Given that there is at least one variable benefit, it could be that one or more of these values changes with the length of time the policy is in place.
If you upload your save, I can take a look at it and see where things stand.