Colorado Springs (A Leak)

The GOP's future of America is here today in Colorado Springs.

As a cost-saving measure, Colorado Springs is turning off streetlights. Flipping the switch on about 1/3 of the city's 24,512 streetlights is expected to save $1.245 million in electricity. But that's just a down payment on a $28 million budget gap for 2010.

Perhaps the most noticeable change for Colorado Springs' 400,000 residents will be in parks, where budgets have been slashed by nearly 75 percent.

"We've taken all the trash cans out. We're not going to be doing any litter collections in the parks," says Larry Small, vice mayor for Colorado Springs. "We're hoping the citizens will pack it out themselves."

All the restrooms have been closed. There'll be very little watering, and crews will mow just once a month instead of weekly.

The city even trimmed its police and fire budgets and is auctioning three of its police helicopters on the Internet. Still, that's not enough.

"We did have a transit system," Small says. "That's gone almost completely now."

Who's to blame for this budget mess?  Slashed parks services, deep cuts to police and firefighters, the city's bus service has been literally sold off.  The city's turning out the lights to save money, literally. 

The answer shouldn't surprise you if you've been paying attention to the Teabaggers.

(More after the jump...)

In this politically conservative city, most people on the street say the city just needs to spend its money more wisely. 

"Seems like the city ... is overpaying its workers," Shirlee Kelley says. "I think the salaries have to come down to be more even with what the private sector is paying."

Got that?  We should cut people's salaries.  The teabaggers truly are for the people.  The private sector people, you see.  If you have a government job, you're the enemy.  They don't care if you're trying to put food on the table for your family, you're working for the government.  You are the definition of waste.  Your job and your livelihood are expendable.

 Small argues that wages are comparable to other municipalities. But that doesn't satisfy critics, who don't like the cuts the city is choosing to make.

"The government is using its typical tactic of making highly publicized cuts in order to make people feel the pain to some extent," says Douglas Bruce, a small government activist and author of Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

If that's truly the strategy, it's not working. In November, Colorado Springs voters approved an initiative sponsored by Bruce that keeps the city from raising property taxes — whittling away city finances even more.

Colorado Springs is now considering wholesale changes to the way it operates. City leaders are thinking about selling the local utilities and a hospital. That could raise an estimated $1.3 billion. Small says the money could be put in a trust for the city and provide $50 million a year in much-needed revenue to pay for basic services. 

Sell the hospital, water, power, and sewer to private companies.  Surely they'll charge less and do a more efficient job, right?

Businesses and residents across South Carolina are opposing a proposed 9.5 percent electricity rate increase by the state's largest private utility.

OK, power's not the best example...wait, what about water?

It looks like American Water Co. is out to get back in the black on a national scale.  We now have three examples, all within the last 30 days, of subsidiary companies of American Water seeking very large rate increases in different service areas.  Add the Veolia case from Indianapolis, and we have four examples.

Here are links to the stories:
Illinois American, 30% increase
Indiana American,38% increase
Missouri American,18% increase
Veolioa (Indianapolis, IN), 35% increase

Umm...hmm.  Hospitals and health insurance are going down in price, right?  Lots of free market in the health care industry now, right?

California's largest for-profit health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, is expected to raise premiums by 30 to 39 percent on an unknown number of its 800,000 members.

OK...well...guess what, America?  You're paying for it anyway.  And instead of paying the government, which is accountable to you, you're going to be paying a private contractor who isn't accountable at all.  And they're going to want to make a profit.

So how does making a profit off your utilities lead to lower costs?  Answer...it doesn't.  But millions of Americans have been fooled into thinking anyone who works in a government job: teachers, cops, firefighters, utility workers, parks employees, sewer maintenance crews...they're all lazy and worthless.  They're not even Americans to the Teabaggers.  "Cut their wages."

Since when is the American dream to deny it to other people who work for a living?  It is if you're an angry Teabagger who hates other people that much.  The list of apostates who aren't real Americans grows daily:  minorities, non-Christians, college-educated people, GLBT folks, government employees, urban residents, union workers, Democrats, non-gun owners...you belong to any of those categories, well, the Teabaggers are coming for you.

The city employees of Colorado Springs are just the latest to be put on the THEM list.  And that list keeps getting bigger...