We often wonder what a conservative paradise would really look like on the liberal blogs, and it looks like Colorado Springs—-home to many defense contractors and to Focus on Family—-has become a shining star in the much-desired collapse of basic government services that Grover Norquist and other anti-government fanatics have always wanted. Unfortunately, it seems less paradise to have much-slashed government, and more stinky, ugly, boring, and scary.
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
In addition, cutbacks in community service spending means that summer programs for kids that keep them off the streets will be cut, and programs that help elderly people get out and about will also disappear. The streets are less safe, not only because they cut back on police, but also on streetlights. And private business will be hurt, because tourism is going down, due to these cuts and others.
One thing I thought was interesting in watching the House Republicans battle Obama last week was how much Republican talking points about budget don’t take into account how government revenues depend on a highly variable tax base, and when the taxpayers make less money, so does the government. Now, I understand that it’s in their political interests to pretend the only relevant aspect of government budgeting is how much goes out, because they are opposed to any government spending that doesn’t enrich their friends or leave people dead. But the implicit denial that a stimulated economy will help increase revenue in the future was fascinating, since old arguments about tax cuts also assumed the more money being invested out there means more money coming in. I suppose “lower taxes” is an article of faith with Republicans now, and they quit bothering to even justify it from a pragmatic viewpoint a long time ago. (In part because it’s indefensible—-the wealth does more for the government and general prosperity if the middle class has it, and Republican policies that concentrate wealth into the hands of the already wealthy are ineffective.) I bring this up because Colorado Springs isn’t just in the grip of the fallacy that you can have services without taxes, but also that you can have a tax base without having a population that makes enough money to pay taxes.