GoMontreal Posted February 11, 2010 Share Posted February 11, 2010 Many cities bum rush towards bankruptcy, raising taxes instead of cutting spending, but one city – Colorado Springs – has drawn the line. When sales tax revenues dropped, voters were asked to make up the shortfall by tripling their property taxes. Voters emphatically said no, despite the threat of reduced services. Those cuts have now arrived. 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… 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. I bet they do find private funding. That and community involvement is a better solution than throwing more money to government bureaucrats. A private enterprise task force is focusing on the real problem; the city’s soaring pension and health care costs for city employees. Broadmoor luxury resort chief executive Steve Bartolin wrote an open letter asking why the city spends $89,000 per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends only $24,000 on each. Good question, and also the subject of my Fox Business Network show tonight. Government employee unions are a big reason cities spend themselves into bankruptcy. Some union workers in Colorado Springs make it clear that they are not volunteering to help solve the budget problems. (A) small fraction of city employees have made perfectly clear they won’t stand for pay cuts, no matter what happens to the people who pay their wages. The attitude of a loud minority of employees, toward local taxpayers, sometimes sounds like “(expletive) them.” Maybe those workers should sense change in the air. Colorado Springs residents understand that if you can’t pay for it, you can’t have it. And if a rec center has to be closed, or the cops lose their helicopters, or government workers get a pay cut, so be it. Read more: http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/02/11/colorado-springs-walks-the-walk/#ixzz0fH4d5Mpd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTLskyline Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Stossel is the man! I really wish I could watch his Fox Business show tonight, but, Videotron doesn't carry that channel... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cataclaw Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 I don't really care for Stossel's hard-right libertarian views, but on this issue i have to say i'm in full agreement. Raising taxes CAN be a beneficial thing, if the circumstances are right. But before raising taxes, all possible efficient cuts should be explored. This is especially a problem in Quebec. There are a lot of things we could trim (without even affecting quality of life!) in this province. Before raising any tax, let's explore those options. If and only if those options are not fruitful... then we can consider raising taxes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoMontreal Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 Stossel is the man! I really wish I could watch his Fox Business show tonight, but, Videotron doesn't carry that channel... You can watch all his shows on therightscoop.com within an hour or two of airing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoMontreal Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 I don't really care for Stossel's hard-right libertarian views, but on this issue i have to say i'm in full agreement. Raising taxes CAN be a beneficial thing, if the circumstances are right. But before raising taxes, all possible efficient cuts should be explored. This is especially a problem in Quebec. There are a lot of things we could trim (without even affecting quality of life!) in this province. Before raising any tax, let's explore those options. If and only if those options are not fruitful... then we can consider raising taxes! I don't know if I would say that he's hard right... He's for legalizing drugs, gay marriage, etc. He's actually very liberal (left) on social issues and very libertarian (right) on fiscal issues. We need to not confuse authoritarian right with libertarian right... the purple box below is where I see myself and I'm sure Stossel would fit in there too. It's kind of weird to see Obama where he is, I imagined him in the red box for sure. Maybe this graph needs updating after a year in power. Also, I would've thought Ron Paul would have been lower into the purple box... btw, if you want to take the political compass test for yourself, you can go to http://www.politicalcompass.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pedepy Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 i liked the comment they made on the the show 'the hour' last night on this, in that as they tried to stick it to the man & revolt against perceived 'socialism', they really created a communist utopia. think of it - not even any taxes: people paying right out of their own pockets for services geared towards the greater good. kinda like if all U.S. doctors revolted against the healthcare reform plan by offering their services for free .. weird neighbors we have sometimes i tell ya ...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pedepy Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 It's kind of weird to see Obama where he is, I imagined him in the red box for sure. Maybe this graph needs updating after a year in power. Also, I would've thought Ron Paul would have been lower into the purple box... very few american politicians are actually left; our own canadian conservatives would probably even fall more to the left than the american democratic party for a good number of their policies. .. ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoMontreal Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 very few american politicians are actually left; our own canadian conservatives would probably even fall more to the left than the american democratic party for a good number of their policies. .. ! Well, when the government is bailing out companies and buying car companies, I don't know how much more do you need to do before you fall into the left quadrant. As far as I'm concerned, people like Bush and Mccain should be much closer to the vertical line dividing left and right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Habsfan Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 (edited) Raising taxes CAN be a beneficial thing, if the circumstances are right. But before raising taxes, all possible efficient cuts should be explored. This is especially a problem in Quebec. There are a lot of things we could trim (without even affecting quality of life!) in this province. Before raising any tax, let's explore those options. If and only if those options are not fruitful... then we can consider raising taxes! I'm really starting to question myself why do you even bother?? Nothing will ever change in this province. WE are ultra liberals when it comes to everything, no matter how much change you think we as a society need, it ain't gonna happen. Too many bums in this province don't pay any taxes at all...do you honestly think that these people would want to see all their free services taken away? Fvck No! They don't contribute anything to our society, yet they hold the rest of us(the actual tax payers) down, and they voting against any changes to the way our gov't spends its money! I'm getting more and more disillusioned as the years go by. Il y a trop de profiteurs dans cette province, et rien ne va changer dans un futur rapproché. Edited February 15, 2010 by Habsfan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoMontreal Posted February 15, 2010 Author Share Posted February 15, 2010 i liked the comment they made on the the show 'the hour' last night on this, in that as they tried to stick it to the man & revolt against perceived 'socialism', they really created a communist utopia. think of it - not even any taxes: people paying right out of their own pockets for services geared towards the greater good. kinda like if all U.S. doctors revolted against the healthcare reform plan by offering their services for free .. weird neighbors we have sometimes i tell ya ...... You know, it's really not like socialism or communism. In a free-market capitalist country, people take and share responsibility instead of depending on others to provide everything (and paying astronomical amounts to get the work done by inefficient and overpaid blue collar workers). Socialism and communism is imposed on you, whereas, in this case, nobody forced anybody to mow the lawn of the park and nobody forced you to pay for it either. Further, lots of doctors would be generous and offer free health care (like it was in the past) if the government wasn't there. The government, in an idealist need to take care of everything and everyone, actually does a lot of harm and makes people self-centered, un-generous, and un-helping, destroying any kind of community there would be if government didn't get involved. Instead of having government waste all our money on it's awful choices, why not give that power back to the people? I'm sure people would organize and spend only on what they thought was really necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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