“I’d rather my kids drive on gravel roads than stick them with a big tax bill”
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I've started collecting links from around the country about people coming to grips with the notion that government services they rely on might cost more than they would like to pay.
The quote in this post's headline comes from the Wall Street Journal and sums it up pretty nicely.
The man who uttered that line was sitting in a bar in Spiritwood, N.D., where workers have been busy tearing up asphalt to build gravel roads that are less expensive to maintain than paved roads, at least in the short term.
The Journal story quotes experts pointing out that gravel roads aren't free either (MPR's News Cut also deals with that issue), but this kind of choice is popping up in a lot of places.
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They're laying off police officers in Oakland.
They're closing pools and shutting off street lights in Colorado Springs.
A California city has cut its staff to zero. UPDATE: An account of the same from today's New York Times.
Look for some version of this debate to crank up in Minnesota in coming months as city officials set their property tax levies and budgets for the coming year. As we noted here earlier, Willmar is asking residents to rank their favorite services.
It all puts me in mind of what I have to decide to tell my barber each time I go in for a haircut. Do I just want a little off the top and around the ears, or should I just shave it all off and start over? What exactly do Minnesota communities want to do collectively and what not?