Tax the evangelicals!

When you take the Baptist Road exit off the Ronald Reagan Highway, you'll be in--of course--Colorado Springs, where one-third of the streetlights are now dark, and the city has been laying off firefighters, beat cops, burglary investigators, and the vice team.  (There was a "vice team" in the Springs?)

City parks no longer have trash cans because no one can be hired to empty them.  The parks will no longer be watered because the city can't afford it.  Citizens themselves will be asked to wheel their lawnmowers over to green spaces and mow them themselves--only until late June, though;  the grass will probably be dead by then.

Recreation centers and swimming pools will be closed in March, public transportation eliminated on nights and weekends, and streets will no longer be paved.  Meanwhile, the city's homeless population, situated in 220 various "camps," continues to grow. 

The city managed to sell their police helicopters for $877,000, not near enough to cover the $22 million dollar drop in sales tax revenue in 2010 compared with 2007.  Last fall, voters turned down a measure that would have tripled the property tax, but would have brought in $27 million, enough to cover the shortfall.

Admittedly, that would have been a hefty property tax increase.  On the other hand, when the parks dry up, and new streets aren't paved, and the ones that are have trash in the gutter, home values will go down much more than whatever the property tax might have been.

In any case, there is only one possible remedy:  Tax the evangelicals!  Do the math.  The Springs has about 360,000 citizens.  Figure two thirds of them--240,000--are evangelicals.  If they all chip in a hundred bucks apiece--evangelicals love the flat tax--that should cover the sales tax short-fall for this year.

Comments

[toujoursdan]

Same thing is happening here. The NYC subway has reduced service and they are reducing the police force by 1,300

[John Petty]

I would imagine state and local officials all over the country are having a tough time.

Colorado Springs' situation is ironic because it's "ground zero" for the religious right and the anti-tax crusaders, such as Doug Bruce. Bruce is the guy who, more than anyone else, is responsible for the TABOR law in Colorado--long story, but it's bad news for state government.

You do have to give the guy a certain grudging respect because he's managed to be quite effective. He was briefly in the state legislature a couple of years ago, and was known mostly for kicking a reporter.

[toujoursdan]

Yeah. It would be gratifying to see them get skewered. I am worried about the decline in social services and police. As you may know, I don't believe this recession is just a bump in the road from which we'll go back to "normality" but the beginning of an permanent economic decline (for reasons described here (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/our-debt-time-bomb-is-ready-to-go-ka-boom-2010-02-02?dist=beforebell , plus a few others). I think the evangelical community is going to be the first to scream once the reduction of social services impacts them in a serious way and it will be interesting to see how their rhetoric will change.

[Hypatia]

Tax all the richest religious denominations. It'll never happen, but it should.

[lillianjane]

Of course they had a vice squad. They had to keep track of all the megachurch pastors embroiled in sex and drug scandals.
I favor a property tax for churches with enormous incomes.

[John Petty]

Dan, I read that article and it freaked me out. Thanks a lot.

Hypatia and Lillian, you guys were inspirational; now you're meddling. :)