Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: roo_ster on November 04, 2008, 12:55:24 PM
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Last quarter saw -0.3% GNP growth. It looks like we might get another and officially be in a recession. Folks have cut back some purchases, leading to less revenue pulled in via sales taxes.
Toss on top of that falling real-estate values that eventually will bring in less real estate tax revenue.
This will lead to some local governments (to include school districts) trimming their budgets a bit.
If they are true to form, the first thing put on the block will be items like library hours, park maintenance, street maint, trash pickup, etc. The "solution" will be a bond package or increased tax rates to "save the library."
Next item usually placed on the chopping block is police & fire services: less overtime paid out, hiring freeze, staff cuts.
The last thing to be considered is cuts to the government paper-pushers and one NEVER hears of doing things like closing vagrant shelters and the like.
From my perspective, they priorities are just about 180deg out of whack.
1. Give-aways to non-taxpayers ought to be the very first thing axed, especially when they are largely used by folks who don't necessarily reside in the locality or are illegally in the USA.
2. Cuts to the paper-pushers to remove some of the "gov't job security."
3. Quality of life items like libraries, parks, etc.
4. Police & fire depts should tighten their belts.
5. Trash & water services
6. Streets
If the locality was so foolish as to build convention venues and hotels, they ought to be sold off in order to bring the budget into balance.
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Actually, the items they trim back are EXACTLY what the government wants to trim back.
They don't want to have to suffer in hard times. So, the first things they trim back are the highly visible items you mentioned.
As a result, people get the impression: Oh! the government is hurting for money, they can't pay for what I want!
Because people are uninformed, they are not aware that the government skipped cutting back on the non-essential and non-visible items.
So, the government is better able to put through tax increases (and/or bonds).
Keep in mind, the government will ALWAYS act in its own best interest- not in the interest of its citizens.
(Now imagine if a company did things like this to its stockholders. And Obama wants the government rather than the market deciding... well, anything?)
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Locally related: one item on the ballot was whether to spend $75M on a new county jail, paid for with bonds (translation: obligate future taxpayers to cough up $150M). While the county isn't threatening "...or the library gets it", the core theme was "new jail under our terms, or new jail under a judge's terms when he declares the old one uninhabitable/inhumane". Popular counter-argument was against putting it right next to (i.e.: 75 feet) a large dense neighborhood, and how cheap it is to just outsource incarceration to other counties.
Undiscussed was the notion that maybe the county should include new facilities in its standard budget, rather than unilaterally obliging future taxpayers ("well, ya see, we MUST pay off these old debts...").
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:mad: :mad:
I would just love to see one local idiot pol threaten us; "cough up the new tax $$$ or I will resign and not accept anymore paychecks!!!!"
:O
It ain't gonna happen!!!
And the jerks can raze the &***^#@$% library for all I care.... :mad: :mad:
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. . . The last thing to be considered is cuts to the government paper-pushers . . .
Most of which wouldn't be missed. I lived in MN when most state employees went on strike, and except for students at U of MN who had to stand in longer lines during registration, virtually nobody noticed. Trash kept getting picked up, prisoners stayed in jail, lights, water and sewer kept functioning, police, fire, and EMS stayed on the job, even the streets kept being maintained.
So . . . WHO exactly was on strike, and WHY did taxpayers need to cough up more money for them?
The strike was settled shortly after people on call-in radio shows began asking this question.
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Personally I've always felt that libraries are the ONLY reasonable dollars spent on education.
I say pull ALL federal funding of education as well as all personal property taxes.
Leave traditional schooling and education up to the free market and privatize it.
Then have libraries as the only form of government funded education.
The premise being knowledge is there and free, you go get it and better yourself.
No excuses about the knowledge not being available or withheld.
Schools are simply a device to pay someone to instruct you on knowledge that is available for free.
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Next you'll be thinking that we ought to cut government salaries, lay off gov't workers, or trim back their COLAs or annual "merit raises." What are you, some kind of fascist? Gov't has become a middle class welfare system, nothing more.
And you have to get your priorties straight: the State budget, at least here in California, exists only to fuel the social welfare establishment, part of which is the education aka babysitting/reform school arm, and the continuing accommodation of our illegal alien influx.
Maybe you thought your taxes were for real services? Funny.