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

[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.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

(I live less than an hour away from Colorado Springs, it's the next county south.)

Actually, there are a lot of fen living in the area, enough to support a comfortable size local con. & there are others there who, from the chat I had this afternoon, have been trying to get a series of tax increases in place to prevent just such an occurrence of this. & still others who live there because it is a beautiful location etc etc & even refer to that big conservative group down there as "fraud on the family." It's them I feel sorry for.

I just hope that people wake up about the time that the first fire hits, or the first whatever normally preventable disaster comes down. However, most people require several blows by a clue by four before they realize that something serious is happening & then it's never their fault.

Hypocrisy is the hardest sin to see in one's self.