For those folks here in Milwaukee who think County Executive Scott Walker’s philosophy of “killing off” county government one department at a time in order to keep taxes as low as humanly possible is a great idea, read what happened when that
happened in Colorado Springs, Colorado:
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.
You can read more about what’s going on in Colorado Springs at the Denver Post.
I don’t know about you, but parks overgrown and full of litter, fewer firefighters and police officers, and streets that are maintained sure sounds great to me!
C’mon, Zach. Walker just needs a little more time. He’s already got a good head start on getting us to that point already.
The 2010 gubernatorial election is kind of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, because one the one hand I want Walker out of Milwaukee County so he can stop ruining things, but on the other hand I dread what damage he’ll do as governor.
There are some counties in rural Michigan that have turned gone back to gravel roads to save money, as they have none to pave the roads with. According to a news story, “The county estimates it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road.” And they didn’t have the money to do it.
This is what happens when the major urban center of a state disintegrates and people wish to live in a tax-free environment.
That DOES sound like Paradise! Don’t worry about the police cuts. Law enforcement can be handled by armed citizens driving around in jeeps. For a moment I worried that some might eschew regular law to enforce their own laws, perhaps old testement laws that they feel are still valid, but then I came to my senses. That would never happen.
If there aren’t enough of those high priced gov’mnt workers to check on the welfare of children and a few get tortured or starved to death, that’s a price one pays in exchange for low taxes. I mean, a man must have priorities…
Now, don’t get me wrong. I pay taxes. I want them as low as they can be without abdicating the social contract to my fellow citizens, many of whom are less fortunate than I, especially in 2010.
I also own and use guns A LOT. But I don’t LOVE my guns. I will use them to defend my family if I have to, but I will not wear them to a park to grill hotdogs…and forgive me for assuming that I would feel the same toward those that do as Clint Eastwood as Joe Kidd did when Lamar threatened him on the stairs with his machine pistol…
“Lamar, I have a dollar that says I can break your neck before you get that rig moved three inches…”
I also follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, although there must be some pages of my bible missing, because some of this hate eminating from others who say they follow him just isn’t in my book.
So…I want the lowest taxes possible while maintaining law enforcement and helping the less fortunate, I own and use guns, and I believe in Jesus Christ…
In 2010, that makes me a flaming left wing ultra-liberal!
Yeah right, it’s always police and fire they say will suffer anytime anyone proposes a cut. How about government gets back to the basics of police and fire instead of all of these other programs, most of them inefficient, wasteful, abused, or don’t help the people they were designed to help anyway.
Jason, as for turning secondary roads back to gravel, I will agree it’s not ideal, but who is supposed to pay for more and more government especially at a time of financial hardship? It has to be about priorities. Government can’t keep doing everything and in tough times something’s gotta give.
I agree that that we must ride out the economic hard time. That said, signs are that the economy is making a recovery. From your writing, you are willing to allow the primary road in a county to be gravel. It’s not a matter of paying for “more and more government,” but simply to maintain infrastructure. Are you willing to let that go?
Jason, I don’t know enough about the Michigan budget to be able to comment. On its surface, turning roads back to gravel seems shortsighted, but I don’t know the other choices that were on the table. The direct alternative was to pay 10x as much to pave them. I would think they could hardly go to the taxpayers and ask for more when they have the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
I agree infrastructure should be a top priority, but government has not focused on that, instead favoring income transfer programs and offering services. Government rarely makes the tough decisions that are necessary, and chopping up roads hardly seems like a good one.
“How about government gets back to the basics of police and fire…”
That reminds me of all the drama going on in Milwaukee because there were some cuts in the FD. The citizens are up in arms over the closing of Ladder Company 10…claiming lives will be lost due to it’s closing. I think that is such BS. I say to all those people who live near that firehouse go out and buy yourselves a damn smoke detector already. If a person dies in a house fire that didn’t have any working smoke detectors how does that become the fault of anyone else but themselves??
Interesting to see the cutbacks in Colorado Springs. If I were in office there I’d slap a tax surcharge on Focus on the Family to help cover the unexpected tax decline.
Nothing like being vindictive to those you disagree with. Sounds like you have some issues there.
I would never single any group out like that, but if you propose a tax surcharge, why not one on liberals? Since many of them are the ones who always seem so eager to propose new taxes and increases, they should be the ones to pay them first.
Often they are. Look at the records for Feingold vs those for Wall.
Exactly.
huge zing from capper