Lower Taxes Means Less Civilization

[filkertom]

Welcome to Colorado Springs, CO:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we're going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It's a new day."

But remember, gang: Government is bad.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

The second will provide a resolution to the first.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Hehe, and the fires that catch in the dead, tall grasses will spread to the houses.

And with not enough firefighters...

[alverant.livejournal.com]

*sarcasm on*
Don't worry Tom, the people that matter will be able to provide their own security force and keep their own lawns green. The people who don't matter will have to fend for themselves as it should be.
*sarcasm off*

I have to agree with the post title, taxes buy civilization. Anarchy won't provide it.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

this will be VERY interesting. Because the rich folks are going to contract to private police and water departments. Nevermind that they'll pay more - it's not a tax.

The rest of the poor scum will just have to do without.

How long before we see the lovely Colorado Springs turn into the worst slum in America? Take your pictures of the USAF academy now kiddies - you can be killed for that camera in just a little while when the gangs realize they overwhelm what few cops are left.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Either that or a private gated community with only rich people in it and property owners complaining that no one will make the commute from Denver to clean their houses for them for subminimum wages.

The best part will be that Colorado Springs will no longer have enough people to get its own representative in Congress to urge the repeal of the 20th Century.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

It seems like this is a very dangerous object lesson on the necessities of taxation

[a-steep-hill.livejournal.com]

Couldn't happen to a nicer city.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Focus on the Patriarchy is in Colorado Springs. Want to bet those paragons of Christian charity and compassion will step up with some private capital to replace public funds?

Yeah, me neither...

[delazan.livejournal.com]

I love your icon.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Maybe Rev. Whatsisname will reroute some of his budget for drugs and gay prostitutes toward charitable purposes.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

The locals tend to call it "fraud on the family"

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Gee, nothing about mayor taking a 20% pay cut. Same for school board members and other high office holders. Or reducing a 9 member city council to the 5 that can do the same job. Also eliminating staff of unnecesary members, shutting off heat and lights to now-unused council offices.

[tandw.livejournal.com]

As I read the article, a 20% pay cut for the mayor would take him from $6500/yr to $5200/yr; the mayorship and city council membership are both part-time jobs.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

I think we'll find that the actual implementation of their ideals will be the worst thing to ever happen to the drown-the-government wing of the conservative movement. Once people see what actually happens when you try to starve the government, they'll realize what a shitty idea it actually is.

Here's your chance, guys. Show us what life is like under your ideal society. And then once it blows up on you, maybe you can shut the hell up for a while.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

This is what I'm thinking, too. It's like, okay guys. You think taxes are so evil? Let's see what you think of life without any of the infrastructure those taxes provide.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

This is gonna be one hell of an experiment in social darwinism...

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

Hail Malthus! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus)

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I notice that there is no comment about lowered pay for city politicians. There are so many ways to trim services while cutting taxes, without gutting a city. Perhaps they should go talk to my favourite mayor of all time. Perhaps the longest running Mayor not only in Canada but in North America. Hazel McCallion. She's kept Mississauga in the black since she elected since 1978. Personally I'd vote for her to run the country what ever party she ran under. But our system doesn't run that way. She's got an entry in Wikipedia if you want to know more. More Mayors should look to emulate her as far as I'm concerned. Mississauga is a great place to live, to bad I don't live there any more.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

Their city council works part time, for 6,250 a year, the mayor makes 6,500. Cutting their salary isn't going to help the issue.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything in the story about a lowering of tax rates. It seemed to be saying that the spending budget was based on assumptions about sales volumes and the tax on those. That didn't materialize because people had less to spend.

Voters then rejected the idea of *tripling* property taxes, which makes sense, considering that "less to spend" thing.

It would be interesting to see how that city's rates compared to others' in order to judge. Do they have an anti-tax history that the reporter assumes readers will know about?

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Yes. they're famous for having very low taxes on most things.
Which is why they have le zippo in reserve for this "emergency" in budgeting.

Adequate government doesn't just take taxes, it acts as a good housewife and uses them well AND saves anything left over for a rainy day.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind seeing more openness in the budget. That way we would know just how much is being spent on what. It's possible that the money for essential services could be directed towards countering the drug and gang violence. Cali does have LA and LA has some of the biggest gangs in the city.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Remember: Colorado Springs is the home of "Focus on the Family" They even have a sign on the freeway (Interstate 25) pointing to their visitor center.

Shame too, it's a very pretty town.

[johno.livejournal.com]

How hard hit is CS by nilitary cutbacks?

5 Military units are there, but if Fort Carson (the biggest of the 5) got cutback or much of it's personnel are deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan, that's large chunk of income gone.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I predict that the Usual Suspects will blame the city's financial woes on ... the city spending too much money on employee benefits. Get rid of the health insurance and pensions, and their problems would be solved, right?

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing there aren't any intelligent wealthy right-wingers. Otherwise, they'd make sure (by handing over money) that everything went well, and use it as an example to get taxes lowered elsewhere.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

They won't hand over money because government should be small, seen but not heard & if they were really smart they'd know better anyways.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Ah, Colorado Springs. Putting the "rugged" in rugged individualism.
Taxation slashing: this is why we can't have nice things.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Hi, Tom. Posting from the train?

They have an awful lot of Churches in Colorado Springs. I suggest they prey, er, pray.

[antinomic.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if our Imperial Federal Government left some money to be available for local taxes, this would not happen. CS may be the first but it won't be last last city bankrupted by our unlimited federal spending. There are only some many dollars to be taxed. I hope they don't take my grocery money.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Q: What do you call the government going away in Colorado Springs?

A: A good start.

Seriously, though, it's interesting that this is going on in Robert Heinlein's old home town. Somehow, it seems very fitting.

In 2006, Money magazine called Colorado Springs their #1 big city, as far as the places to live go. What we now have is an experimental social laboratory where we can study the effects of reducing the footprint of government. It's population is around 375,000, so it can represent both large cities and middle-sized ones. Their elections are one year away--one year in which the rest of us can watch and see if the good citizens are willing to kick their addiction to paternalism.

My guess? They've got a decent base of folks with money there. I expect the museums to cut back an hour or two a day and use more volunteers. I expect private neighborhood day-care providers to start making more money than they had previously. I expect that landscaping companies will bring water and flowers to the parks in exchange for advertising.

I expect a lot of bitching about potholes, but the remaining civic money will be re-allocated to those few things city government is good at and by the time election day comes around, folks will be used to the new level of services and it won't make much, if any difference, at all in the results.

Police helicopters? Seriously. Seriously? Man, I hate the idea of police *anywhere* having better armament or armor than the average citizen.

Why don't we follow the unfolding story in here? If this is not just a scare tactic on the part of the city government, this example can provide a very useful guide to finding out which of us are right on this subject.

Tom Trumpinski

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a much greater faith in The People than you do in The Government...of course, last time I checked, all those miserable politicians who RUN the government are, in fact, PEOPLE! They seem to come from the same American homes, schools, towns and churches that The People come from.

I'm not saying the government is to be trusted. I don't trust politicians, because a pre-requisite of the job is the firm belief that you are better than everyone else, and therefore should play a part in enforcing what everyone else can and can't do.

But I trust the "decent base of folks with money" even less. In my experience, people tend to get money so they can keep it, and the residents of Colorado Springs have been SO desperate not to part with it that NOW, their trash cans and street lights are gone. If they won't even pay for this shit communally, why would any of them cover the entire tab?

I'm sure a few of them have ideals greater than "gimme gimme gimme" - about the same tiny ratio of higher-ideal-minded folks that exists in government, I'd wager, since greed for money and greed for power are two different things - but WHAT possible incentive could there be for helping a bunch of people who CAN help you back, but won't in a million years, just because they have the right not to? The only incentive that I see will be to charge admission for the public pools, and replace the donations box at the museum with something less voluntary. At least then people will have a choice, but I think so many will choose "no" that there won't even be a sliver of incentive there, either.

I wish I could share your faith in the generosity of rich people, but I think I may have lived too long. Still, as you say, we shall see.