People clamor for lower taxes.
And public budgets and payrolls are shrinking because sakes tax revenues and property tax base collections are shrinking.
No doubt the Right thinks reality is matching up with ideology.
But man, oh man, do people ever want public services when the need arises.
For example, who do you think is paying for all that swine flu testing?
Or this: A City of Milwaukee HAZMAT team rolled through the East side yesterday - - in expensive equipment, with highly-trained firefighters - - because a gas cloud emerged from a UWM laboratory.
Definitely not a situation for neighbors to attack with garden hoses and window fans.
Major cities provide these specialized services, along with employees that fill the potholes, pick up the garbage, inspect restaurant kitchens and perform a multitude of tasks that make neighborhoods desirable.
And we are more than glad to be taxed for them.
And the same goes for county, state and Federal services, too.
Most people want lowered taxes, but don't want a diminished service environment, either.
So in this era of furloughed public employees and trimmed services, be careful of getting what you wish for.
Did I miss a public payroll or budget shrinking somewhere? Fed spending is going up like a rocket, and the state is crying about drastic "cuts" that leave their budget up only 10%. Only government can call a huge increase a big cut. Crying wolf over "big budget cuts" doesn't leave you with much credibility. And everytime we want to take one dime out of spending, we always hear we'll have to cut the 10% of government that it actually makes sense to fund, rather than addressing the 90% that we would all be better off without.
ReplyDelete@ Curt:
ReplyDeleteAnd whenever the Right talks about govt waste it conveniently forgets to mention specifics.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that there's waste.
Care to point it out?
So what part(s) of the State, County, and City budgets should we cut?