From Pine View Farm

Colorado Spring Sprang Sprung (Updated) 1

Colorado Springs is in shut down mode as the Town Fathers discover that living in civilized society has a price tag and that the Laughable Curve just doesn’t work.

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.

Via the Inverse Square blog, where Tom editorializes so I don’t have to.

(Later on in the story, a local plutocrat is quoted as wondering “why the city spends $89,000 per employee, when his enterprise has a similar number of workers and spends only $24,000 on each.” Bet his enterprise offers great health care and retirement.)

Addendum:

Tom Publishes an follow-up, in which he discusses Megan McArdle’s statement that she is not against government “in its place.” A nugget:

So no, I don’t think, nor did I ever say, that McArdle wants to fire every cop in Colorado.

What I do think, and say, is that there are recognizable consequences to arguments consistently made…and Ms.McArdle’s position leads in practice, if not in the theory that lights the spotless sunshine of her mind, to local disaster and, unchecked, the long term erosion of American power and (relative) wealth.

As Tom points out, words have consequences.

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1 comment

  1. Karen

    February 2, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    I read the article too. Maybe the crooks from Denver, who still have their helicopters & the like, will head to the Springs. Don’t know that it’ll happen, but it’s a thought.

    All the property owners who didn’t want to pay any more taxes can thank themselves & the people they put into office. The people in office for spending too much on themselves (89K a year) & themselves because they let them in.

    It reminds me of what my aunt & uncle told me about the Land of Fruits & Nuts. AKA California. The very same thing happened.