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.

[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.

[misterseth.livejournal.com]

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

[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...

[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.

[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.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[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]

Are you saying that the city is doing all this, or should do this?

With a pay of 6 and a half k a year, I wonder how steep a cut he can take before he has to work full time outside of running the city.

[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?

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

A Malthusian society would be pretty close to a dystopia, or hell on earth, in many people's books. Guess Colorado Springs is about to find out why...

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Good point. It is a small amount. I'd still be willing to bet that somewhere there is a lot of waste going on. and that's where the cuts should be.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I imagine the mayor of a city that size more likely than not isn't hurting financially.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

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

And with not enough firefighters...

[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.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

You might like to think so, but at some point you've cut all the waste you can and have to start cutting essential services. It's like putting yourself on a diet. Do it right and you get good results, at least to the point where you should no longer be losing weight; do it wrong, or take it past the point that you should, and you start losing muscle and possibly bone instead of fat, because the fat is gone.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Obviously, the job is already one for a part-timer or an independently wealthy local looking to start a political resume. It could probably pay a dollar a year (just to legally establish that the job was in fact a paying one) without making any real difference.

The basic point in question is whether these sorts of cuts are actually enforced by the fiscal situation, or whether it's just another Washington Monument* scam.

*Named for an incident where budget-cutters deliberately selected closing access to the Washington Monument as part of their list of maximum-pain for minimum-gain cuts, selected for the purpose of generating pressure to reinstate the old budget so that business as usual could continue undisturbed.

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

Well, either that, or when they come back to try and fix it you hear "See!?! They screwed you over and nearly killed you, and now they want your tax money! Down with Government, RAWR! *foam at mouth* RAWR!" Of course, a lot of the people that might have responded to such might well be either too busy trying to survive, dead, or gone elsewhere by that time.

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

A couple of Phil's Canadian counterparts were at Conflikt this weekend, and I don't remember why this came up, but one of them (might have been pondside) said something to the effect of "We Canadians are very proud of our high taxes!" The whole "government is evil and should be cut down to the size where you can drown it in the bathtub" thing never caught on up there, and it's doubtful that it will.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

I love your icon.