kalm wrote:I think I told this story before, but it's appropriate here.
In the late 90's a state tax initiative I695 launched by some "limited government" types won approval and dramatically slashed licensce plate tab fees without replacing the funding. Small towns and counties got hammered by this.
The City of Cheney had a choice to raise property taxes by something around $100 per residence a year or lose their parks and rec department (which was quite extensive at the time). Conks like my brother in law thought it to be a bluff figuring government would find some way to come up with the funds and voted it down in a narrow defeat. Sure enough, the P and R department closed and my brother in law had to face his two kids blaming him the next summer for shutting down the Cheney Pool.
Of course the proper conk response to this issue would be to melt the snow with the determined stares of the self-reliant producer class inhabitants of OSBF's little berg.
Wedge's pic shows it all.
Conks - no appreciation whatsoever of their own standard of living.
As a former city manager I can address this. The first thing most politicians do is close things that will get the most screaming and bitching going so they can get their way. It happened in the 90s when Clinton and Gingrich shut down the government. They closed monuments, national parks, etc. so all the tourist people would get pissed. Several years ago the state of Iowa was in a financial pinch so they cut out some of the revenue they shared with cities. Several of my colleagues went ballistic and started talking about how houses would burn down, crime would go up, swimming pools would close, etc. One of my colleagues even went so far as having business cards printed with her state legislator's home phone numbers printed on them to hand out to people when they had a shortened swimming pool season. The problem is that none of these bad things happened and now these same people have no credibility. The legislators were pissed at being called out like that and now those former colleagues of mine receive no respect from those legislators.
In our town we went through our budget and made cuts. Several of the cuts were through improved efficiency, like working out a deal with the sheriff's office to cover some patrol hours so we didn't have to fill a police position, and no department was spared from cuts.
This is why I wanted OB to post the name of the town. Many towns post copies of their budgets or annual audits online or the state does for them. I would really like to see what I could find because I don't believe a town of 3000 is so broke it doesn't have the money to plow snow on a weekend or holiday. The last town I managed was smaller than that and we never scrimped on things like that. Items like snow removal, fire protection, and police protection are necessities and the proper function of government. Fancy parks, DARE officers, decorative street lights, etc. are all wants that should be secondary to the needs.
If fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism. Ronald Reagan, 1975.
Progressivism is cancer
All my posts are satire
