Post reports tax-averse Colorado Springs streets to go dark; comments thread lights up

[Zomby Woof]

Welcome to your "Conservative Utopia", asshats.

http://coloradoindependent.com/46858/post-reports-tax-averse-colorado-springs-streets-to-go-dark-comments-thread-lights-up

The Denver Post today posted a practical look at the recession reality of anti-tax conservative Colorado Springs. City lawmakers working within the shrinking city budget are shutting down services. Street lights are blinking out; beat cops, vice and burglary detectives and firefighters, being dumped; public trash cans, removed; watering schedules at many public parks, finished; swimming pools, shuttered; public-space flower-planting, a thing of the past.

“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,” writes Michael Booth. Nicely put. And the raw ungrammatical work piling up in the comments section is equally eloquent! One-hundred-eighty comments and counting.

[T Wolf]

1. We can only hope that conditions in CS deteriorate to such a degree that the pukes who

reject taxes really get to suffer the consequences.

And then the Democratic Party should feature the decline of that bastion of conservative philosophy in their ads next election cycle.

Actually, I am all for this kind of social experiment on a larger scale. Let states decide how they want to control things. Set up a real-life laboratory to test "our" theories against "theirs."

But then, I am assuming (incorrectly) that proving rethugism does not benefit people while liberalism does would convince the enemy to change their ways.

If the only result is the exodus of pukes from "blue" states to their fundy paradises, that is benefit enough.

[Edweird]

16. I see a potential fly in that particular ointment.

I will start off by pointing out that I am using Florida as an example, and things may not work the same way in CO.

We have what are called 'Outdoor Lights'. They are, for all intents and purposes, street lights. They are installed and maintained by the local electric utility (which, in this case, is me). These lights are paid for by the customer directly as an additional charge on their monthly electric bill. They run, roughly, $20/mo. They are intended to be used as site lighting, however a customer can request that these lights be put basically anywhere on the utility system. It would be possible for the wealthier people to pay for their own private street lighting, that benefits only them, and not pay any additional taxes. (This is exactly the case in some of the wealthier parts of Miami) Yes, they would have to pay more per month, but they would only be paying for they personally benefit from, and that's exactly how they want it. So, it has the potential to affirm their belief system instead of challenging it. I'm not predicting that this will be the eventual outcome, I'm only pointing out a way they may end up losing out on a valuable lesson.

[Winterblues]

19. We already know they don't know what they are talking about or Red states would not

be sucking the Government Tit so much more than Blue States do..They just want their cake and eat it too. "I don't want to pay ANY taxes but the Government Damn well better take care of me"

[hlthe2b]

2. Some of these cretins are beyond hope...

It won't be long, though, before tourists no longer come to the Springs and the asshat that runs the Broadmoor, (who disparages salaries paid to government workers while relying on season workers with no benefits at minimal pay), may just find out what it was the government and the commons actually served to do. By that time, it will be too late, of course. Enjoy, Taborites! (and a big FU to the non-tax paying, government services demanding fundy megachurches, including FOF).

[Warpy]

3. The comments show that the reality hasn't sunk in to the stupid yet

and won't until they experience it for a while. I think Booth needs to go the whole distance and turn all the street lights off and close down most city services.

My guess is that they'll all be screaming about things like property values and street crime at night within 6 months, tops.

[mdmc]

8. I want to keep up with this

very interesting..

[stubtoe]

4. Oh this is priceless! A real-life Libertarian urban dream unfolding.

A bold experiment in how to run a city on fewer tax dollars. Just keep cutting out the "fat", you anti-Government morans, and let the rest of us know how it goes.

[KamaAina]

5. They could power all the streetlights for free

if they could just figure out how to harness all the hot air coming from Focus on the Family. :eyes:

[stubtoe]

6. Cueing Fox Noise ...

*crickets*

[kestrel91316]

7. Now watch them whine about how it's hurting property values,

and companies leave because the city has become a disgraceful eyesore.

[distantearlywarning]

9. I lived in Colorado Springs once.

It was the worst place I ever lived, mostly because it was filled to the brim with conservatives.

[jaxx]

11. It was nice in the 70s, before it grew so big.

And before Dobson moved into town.

[kbuster]

23. Colorado Springs ruined my family.

Air Force family, grandparents got drawn into the fundamentalist movement. Thankfully it was after my parents were together.
Just being in town is miserable.

The lasting effect their stay there had on the family dynamic is just heartbreaking; they moved away but they're even more tied to the movement than ever. I don't think they know how much its hurt us.

[madamesilverspurs]

27. And before Doug Bruce arrived

from California, after he trashed that state with his Prop 13.


---

[Zomby Woof]

29. Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann

They were instrumental in pushing Prop 13 more than anyone else.

[WCGreen]

10. I wonder how things are going up in Bolder...

[Froward69]

21. Currently the conservatives are trying

to make streakers... get this ... Sex offenders.

a zero nudity ordinance.

however

Males can be topless but women cannot.

[ipfilter]

12. Colorado Springs sounds like

a mini version of the entire state of Oklahoma.

[lolly]

13. Republican Districts in California

Should try this plan.

California's budget crisis is a result of its 2/3 majority required for any form of new taxes.

When times are good, we pass tax cuts, then can't raise them--even the tiniest bit on the richest folks--because we can't get a 2/3 majority.

I wish instead of making everybody suffer they would just cut all the services in the handful of places that always go Republican here so they could see what "cutting back government waste" really means--schools shut down, parks closed, police/fire depts. left shorthanded with old equipment, DMV offices and hours cut back drastically, streetlights off, no code enforcement (you don't want to live next to a liquor store? too bad. nobody here to do anything about it!), trash pickup curtailed, etc etc.

Then let the rest of us live like human beings in a civilized taxpaying society.

[stubtoe]

14. What you said, lolly.

There is a similar city in Oregon called Damascus. It has tax-limited itself right out of development.

[leeroysphitz]

31. +1

[SoCalDem]

15. "Stuff" costs money.. what a revelation!

Want fire protection?? Firefighters need to be paid & their machinery needs maintaining

Want water then you turn the faucet? Plumbing laid down a century ago may just need updating.

Want to make it over that crumbling bridge? alive? Maybe bridges DO "wear out", and guess what? they cost MORE to build now than they did in 1904.

Want your kids to have textbooks printed within the last 30 years? School books cost money.

Want pot-holes gone? Road workers don't work for free and asphalt & cement are not free either.

Want the food you feed your kids to have some sort of inspection, somewhere along the line? Health inspectors don't do that as an unpaid hobby.

etc etc

[Starry Messenger]

17. Wonder how the megachurches there are going to explain this one. n/t

[Tesha]

20. Blame it on God's awful wrath against "teh Gays", of course! (NT)

[BurtWorm]

18. Nauseating!

How do those constipated tightwads live with themselves?

[Zomby Woof]

22. Z-kick

[Forkboy]

24. Our city has been doing that for months.

Spray paint sales are up though, so there's that....

[Zomby Woof]

25. Here in L.A. they lock up the spray paint

Which is, of course, remarkably effective. :eyes:

[brooklynite]

26. Nonsense! All we have to do is cuts WASTE, FRAUD and ABUSE!

It's worked everywhere else...

[jmowreader]

28. Colorado Springs, unfortunately, can get away with tax aversion

We The People have given Colorado Springs the greatest gift any tax-hating town can ever imagine: Fort Carson is right next door.

For those of you who've never lived in a town next to a military base, let me explain: the quickest way a GI town can compensate for unsustainably low tax rates is to prey on the soldiers. Killeen, Texas, does that. Hopkinsville, KY, was so bad about it General Bagnal threatened to put the entire town off-limits to soldiers on a number of occasions--and if troops weren't living up there he probably would have done it. (General Bagnal had no qualms about using his off-limits list--he didn't like Kentucky and Tennessee's tattoo sanitation laws so he put every tattoo shop in both states off-limits for about a year until they got their shit together.) The people in Colorado Springs are going to be able to have services without taxes and all they need to do is start enforcing their Public Intoxication statutes against soldiers.

General Perkins can fix that shit in a heartbeat, though--after a while, enough troops will have been busted for PI downtown that they won't mind when General Perkins puts every bar and retail establishment in Colorado Springs off-limits.

[Blue State Bandit]

30. Kick