Tea Party Fundie Colorado Springs forced to Cut & Cut & Cut City Services

[RamboLiberal]

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Like many American cities, this one is strapped for cash. Tax collections here have fallen so far that the city has turned off one-third of its 24,512 street lights.

But unlike many cities, this one is full of people who are eager for more government cutbacks.

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And so, faced with dwindling revenues, intransigent voters and widespread distrust of government, this city of 400,000 has embarked on a grand experiment: It is trying to get volunteers and the private sector to provide services the city can no longer afford.

Taxi drivers have been recruited to serve as a second set of eyes for stretched police patrols. Residents can pay $100 a year to adopt a street light. Volunteers are organizing to empty the garbage cans in 128 neighborhood parks. The city is asking private swimming programs to operate its pools, and one of the city's four community centers soon will be run by a church.

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Some skeptics say it is unfair and ultimately impractical to expect a few volunteers to shoulder burdens while everyone gets the benefits of their work—what economists call the free-rider problem. "If people are not contributing their part, there needs to be a broad community-wide solution," says Richard Skorman, a prominent local businessman who for many years was the sole liberal on the city council.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303411604575168030083419748.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

[jody]

1. Sounds like typical problems of every collectivist government, some will not work but expect a free

lunch.

The collectivist government solution is to force those to work that would not voluntarily participate.

The result is a totalitarian government which is perfectly fine as long as I'm the dictator quoting Dubya Bush.

[kestrel91316]

7. The socialist approach would be to simply raise taxes, more on the rich,

less on the poor, so as to fund services EVERYONE uses and benefits from.

But that would make too much sense.

[jody]

8. Plausible as long as people can't leave an area, e.g. leave CA for NV with lower tax burden.

Or industry leave one high labor cost area for another as in closing plants in Fremont CA and opening plants in Mississippi.

[Frustratedlady]

2. Isn't that the old American way? Pitch in and help when times are bad?

Are the people who complain sitting back and watching those who step forward to help the city through some rough times?

If the Teabaggers would spend the time helping, rather than traveling around the country spewing their venom, the entire country would be better off.

Pitch in and help.

[TwilightGardener]

5. This isn't really about "pitching in", it's about the anti-tax nutjobs of COS

finally getting their way and watching the city fall apart. Of course they're not going to pick up trash, or support public city pools, or use the bus system. They are wealthier and live in the nicer suburbs and don't NEED the city parks, don't NEED the pools, don't need the buses--and the less these services are available, the more the lower classes will (hopefully) decide to leave for Denver, Pueblo, etc. This is the goal. These assholes are free to "starve the beast" of local government, because it's not really a part of their lives, unless they have to head downtown to renew their driver's licenses or something.

[mediaman007]

3. Wow, its a Republican Utopia!

[GodlessBiker]

4. Sounds like Colorado Springs is turning into a kibbutz.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Wow, pretty soon Colorado Springs will resemble the paradise of Somalia!

Now THAT'S the Amurikin Way!

[jody]

9. Or Detroit MI? n/t

[BurtWorm]

10. Mass constipation in action.

:eyes:

Idiots!

[TlalocW]

11. Couldn't happen to a nicer town

Bunch of conservative jackasses lead by multiple religiously insane groups like the monolithic Focus on the Family and Ted Haggard's old church. Get Dobson's ass out there emptying garbage cans.

TlalocW

[kentuck]

12. Not everyone who lives in Colorado Springs is a Tea Party "fundie"..

There are a lot of liberals who live here.