Colorado Springs (A Leak), Part 2

I talked about the financial woes facing Colorado Springs back in February and the nearly delighted response from the Tea Party that the city would have to lay off hundreds, drastically cut services, and turn the tourist town into a ghost town.

Two months later, the situation has only gotten worse as Colorado Springs is being held up as a model...a model of what the Tea Party wants to do to the rest of the country.  The crusade to turn Colorado Springs into Galt's Gulch is being led by city councilman Sean Paige and author Douglas Bruce, who California-fied the Colorado tax code:  No tax increase, no matter how small, can be approved by municipalities without a full vote, and that includes Colorado Springs.  The results are a disaster.

While cities across the US are struggling with diminished tax receipts and the ugly task of paring budgets, the situation is already much worse here in Colorado Springs. Or better, depending on your point of view.  Because there are people here, Mr Paige among them, who think that the drying up of city coffers, while painful for a few, offers a broader opportunity. It's time to get public servants out of public services. It is not unimportant that this town is home to Douglas Bruce, the gnarly hero of the small government movement here and author of Tabor – the taxpayer's bill of rights that was written into law in Colorado and many of its municipalities more than a decade ago. It cripples public finances by forcing politicians to seek popular approval each and every time they want to expand taxes. It also includes a mechanism whereby they must return money to taxpayers if ever they start to run to big a budget surplus. 

Mr Paige strides into the throng of Tea Party protestors to hand out flyers for a "Freedom Festival" he is planning for next month that will bring together small-government advocates from across the region. He contends that it is the perfect time for the city to get out of running things like parks, pools and community centres – he believes the private sector, charities and churches will do it better for less money. 

This is what some are already calling the "Grand Experiment" of Colorado Springs, which is expected to face a revenue shortfall this year of about $28m (£18m) or 10 per cent of its whole budget, brought about in part by the recession and also by the strangulating effects of the Tabor laws. But if this experiment is to be embraced and pursued, then the question arises: how far should it be taken? 

It is not just about lights and lawns. Buses no longer run at weekends or at night; services at community centres have been drastically reduced; at least two of the city's six pools will be closed. The police department's two helicopters have been pawned off on eBay. In the new spirit of volunteerism, taxi drivers must double up as amateur cops watching for crooks while traditional police patrols are trimmed. 

"We are engaged in an experiment here whether we like it or not," says David Munger, a consultant and lobbyist who is on a committee examining a possible sale of the municipal hospital to raise cash. "It seems we are trying to find out how little government is enough government." 

(More after the jump...)

Turning infrastructure into for-profit enterprises and cutting government to the point where it is incapable of doing an adequate job:  this has been the goal of the Tea Party since before they were the Tea Party.  Supply Siders, Club For Growthers, Country Club Republicans, however you want to call them, they've been around for a very long time.  They have their sights set on doing to America what they are doing to Colorado Springs.  Cut taxes for the rich, destroy services for the poor, profit from the capitalist takeover of infrastructure and leave everyone else to fend for themselves while they control it all.

Never one to hold back, Mr Bruce, 62, thinks he has the answer. "If we cut the city budget in half, that might be a reasonable amount," he said in an interview. Rather than applauding the council, he derides its efforts at cuts. "It's like performing liposuction on a whale with a teaspoon," he says. In a variation on the old joke, he says it took four city employees to turn off each of the darkened street lamps. 

Mr Bruce, who whips from his shirt pocket a copy of the US Constitution signed by Clarence Thomas, the conservative Supreme Court Justice, is unconcerned about service cuts. The city's four community centres, which faced closure until the Council at the 11th hour scraped together a lifeline subsidy to last them the rest of this year, are, he says, "a bunch of parasites". They inflate the numbers of residents – the poor, the old and the young – who rely on them, he says. "It's the same with the buses. They are used by 1 per cent of the people. It would be cheaper to buy them all cars." Not that he would, of course. 

While Mr Bruce does not advocating shuttering government entirely – "I am not an anarchist" – he equates taxation to oppression. And like many radical conservatives here he indulges in hyper-ventilated comparisons with Communism, Marxism and what he takes to calling the S-word to protect the sensibilities of a visiting reporter – socialism. "I have a book at home where it says, 'Thou shalt not steal.' The government is stealing from us to redistribute the wealth and that is a key component of the Communist manifesto. Taking money from one group and giving it to another – I call that stealing." 

Paige, who faces re-election next April, cannot afford to be as ideological or as cold when it comes to the cuts. He claims to believe in the capacity of do-gooders and the private sector to "step up" to replace the safety net. "No doubt the cuts will fall far harder on lower income people," he admits. "That doesn't mean we can't find partnerships to fill the gaps. There are a lot of affluent people in this town." 

And the affluent decide who gets support and who doesn't.  Everyone else gets to beg for scraps and fights for what crumbs are left for themselves.  And when infrastructure falls apart and the city begs for private help, well then the folks with the money will step in and take over your city's parks, pools, police force, street lamps, firefighting, public safety, utilities, education and even roads...and do it on their terms, with their rules, and their profit.  Can't afford it?  Oh well.  You're not even human...you're a parasite.  Good riddance to you.  Can't raise taxes of course...but the private company that runs the utilities?  You'd better pay up when they raise their rates.  They're the only game in town, you see.  If not?  Well, the Law of the West says you don't amount to much, pardner.

The apparent equanimity of the wider population in the face of the service evisceration – some voters wrote to the council asking that more street lights be extinguished on environmental grounds – may partly have to do with where the city is and the old frontier history of the American West, Mr Kates suggests. "It's the old mentality of lift yourself by your boot straps and 'I am going to be self-sufficient,' and that's really how it was in the Western states in the beginning." 

Self-sufficient is much easier if you have the money already to to go Galt.  If you don't, well, that's your problem.  Take a third job.  Understand that what these guys want to do is simple:  all that Social Security money and Medicare money and money used to go to services and roads and whatnot...well, these people think the moeny should simply come back to them instead.  Divine Right of Kings and all.  Providence made them wealthy, so clearly they have to right to make decisions.

And that decision is "I got mine.  Screw you."  Never forget, the ultimate, logical end of the Tea Party philosophy is rolling back America to the Gilded Age, rolling back eighty years of liberalism, and returning us to the whims of robber barons and politico bosses.

And they are well on their way.  Imagine your city budget cut in half.  For starters.  Who do you think gets the other half of that budget money?

PS, it's not going to be you.