Allow me one rant--first in a long time-- although I promised myself to resist political posting. I just need to get this off my chest. I reserve the right to remove this post should I need to.
The city of Troy, Michigan will close its library, nature center, community center and museum and lay off 47 police officers after voters rejected a tax hike yesterday. This is not an isolated case, of course. Not even in southeastern Michigan.
Shame on the people who led this anti-tax charge. Don't they understand with property values falling, local governments have to raise money somehow? Institutions like those cut in Troy are important to society. We are already stripping the schools of every enhancement activity. And now comes community institutions. Soon those who can afford it will send their children to private schools in greater numbers and our great public school system will be just for the poor and be treated as such. Anti-tax people have wreaked havoc with Michigan over the last thirty years but see themselves as heroic somehow. Our property taxes fell by about $600 this year. I'd much rather pay that $600 than lose a library or park or cops. If someone is unemployed, of course, their situation is different and possibly they need exemptions.
I'd like to believe that a single altruistic or public-minded or progressive intention was involved in the tax revolt in Troy, but I can only see these people as selfish, irresponsible, arrogant and short-sighted. Who will want to live in Troy, Michigan without a library or enough cops? So the housing values in Troy will drop further--their children will suffer for it.
Troy used to be a progressive city. People in Troy, Michigan are not poor by any stretch of the imagination. They can support these institutions by paying what they've been paying in taxes. But they won't. A city without a library is a pretty arid place. Troy is home to 81,000 people--who have no cultural life now--unless they go to some other city who values such things. Troy, the very name Troy connotes culture. But not in Michigan, I guess.
34 comments:
I'm with you, Patti. With this economy, hard choices are necessary, but too many people don't seem to know what that means. Like others throughout the country, the voters of Troy have made the easy choice. Classic cut off your nose to spite your face.
Not on topic, but related: see
Elaine Viets' post today at Lipstick Chronicles
I agree, shame on them!.
One thing to consider, besides people having a knee-jerk "no tax" response to everything these days, is that less people read, less people see the library as a book place but rather:
That's the place people go to use computers, and those homeless people are there, and tit really isn't very nice, is it, and besides only poor people would go there and I haven't been there in years an neither has anyone I know so what do we need it for and I'd rather have the money for something I want like a new pair of shoes.
Sad but true. We just got a new one here, not a lot of books in it, but at least it's there.
As a former K-Mart employee, twice (once as a Borders manager), I have a slightly different, rather limited sense of Troy...the K-Martization of the city, with perhaps the reliance on underpaid K-Mart kops and all the books necessary at the WaldenBooks as long as that chain lasts?
It's a rare "democracy" where the majority make the decisions, RT, even if they do have access to change a few things via ballot initiative (but those are mediated by how they get on the ballot and how they are presented when on that ballot).
It makes you crazy, doesn't it? One of our neighbors, a man now deceased, was obsessed with taxes. Six years in a row the main library had to cut staff. Carol and I signed a petition to protest the cuts to the city council. The man's wife would sign but he wouldn't. A library isn't "necessary." College degree, successful businessman, fairly decent guy otherwise. But insane about taxes. Look at the national infra-structure. We're 37th in health care (despite Rep. Joe "You lie" Wilson's dumb ass appearance on Dylan Rattigan's show where, even after Rattigan set the record straight, Wilson (a true dope) said, "Well, we're still number one." Reagan is largely responsible for this. We're still paying for all his crimes of various kind,( not least of which was letting Full Medal JackOff Ollie North and the sinister Eliot Abrams funnel guns to their fascists friends in South America. End rant.) The quandry is that nobody has the guts to raise taxes because their political careers are on the line. of course they could always go out and get real jobs. :) And I mean both dems and gops..
Yes, it really picked up steam in the eighties. Somehow the notion that government was bad really came into vogue then along with the notion we deserved to be rich and to take what we needed. Why do other nations see taxes as a joint commitment to the common good and we see it as a hand in our pocket.
This is heartbreaking. And you are right - who wants to live where there is no library or community center or sufficient police officers?(Columbus has that last problem. Don't get me started.)
Because in those social-democracy-flavored countries, the government provides or directly funds a number of services that our government refuses to take away from their corporate political funders. While the Reagan Admin didn't invent giving away as much tax to profit-driven organizations (and shedding competent as well as the few troublesome government workers), they sure did make a quantum leap toward the Selling Out of the government...a government that did so little for its constituents by the standards of the industialized world already.
...or even supplement the corporate interests where those who are poor can't afford the private services...
Todd-Troy was talking about taking the former KMart hdqtrs and making it a city center--which they don't have. Guess that's off the table now.
Naomi-we need to get started before it's all in the pockets of the rich.
Idiots. Well we all know what happened to the original Troy.
Classic Trojan Horse move -- on their own selves!
The short view is no new taxes.....the long view....guess what is going to happen to their property values living in a city that has no library, nature center, community center and museum and 47 less police officers? Really thought this one out didn't they?
And here's another shame. I'm sure, in Troy and other places similar, when services are cut, what won't suffer, is athletic programs(specifically football and basketball).
I like my sports as well as anybody, but it's not the be-all and end-all. Too many people though have this exaggerated notion that sports are more important than academics.
As a former teacher, my wife was always driven nuts by people who did this - various Long Island towns are notorious for voting down taxes to pay for schools and libraries. Some people even had the nerve to say to her, "I don't have kids so why should I have to pay school taxes?"
How do you even answer something that moronic?
Ed's comment was right on point, and it continues today. Republicans want the public believe they can have the same level of services not only without raising taxes to pay for them but with tax cuts!
There was a word for this in 1981:
Reaganomics.
It didn't work then and will not work now, but oo many people in this country are spoiled, stupid and stubborn and ...ah, what's the use?
Jeff M.
Yes, Jeff, I'm afraid that was when this sort of thinking began-the idea we deserved it all but didn't have to pay for it. No one reminds us of what a fair and just society does and is now. I am getting off my soapbox now and on to a lighter topic.
Patti I understand your rant, truly I do but though property values have fallen assessments, at least in Detroit, have not. My house is valued at 35K (17,500SEV)every house near mine sold for no more than 8K in the last 3 years. Last year my taxes went up $50 bucks this year they came down $4.
I don't resist the extra $800 relief that I could fight for on my taxes because I understand all that the millage supports but until they adjust my SEV down to something closer to reality I certainly wouldn't vote to increase my taxes either.
As in so many things, I fall back on "The Simpsons." There was an episode where the school had to make mammoth cuts in many of its programs; all the parents were complaining and Principal Skinner said, "But we could save these programs with a six-dollar a month increase in property taxes," to which the crowd (led on by Homer) begins booing vociferously.
Detroit is in its own private hell, Mark. But Troy is a fairly affluent suburb-and probably they pay less taxes than you do.
Here's what happened in my rural California city which has swelled from 8,000 population 20 years ago to 30,000 now (mostly LA and SF transplants): We are pumping water like crazy out of our underground aquifer, more than it can be recharged by winter rains. The city is participating in a new water pipeline and wants to pay for construction by raising water rates $10 a month (we pay very low rates compared to the metro areas).
The anti-tax heroes successfully led a referendum to vote down the hike, which they termed a "hidden tax." They are very proud of themselves. The leaders are transplants from other areas, where they undoubtedly paid higher rates.
This was incredibly short-sighted of them. Our city is already on drought alert. The city wells are already pumping less water. There is no more landscape watering of city parks. We are headed for water rationing quickly. I paid three times as much for water in LA. I would happily pay $10 more a month for a pipeline. The voters did not agree.
There's simply no "excess money" in city coffers to build the pipeline without cutting city services.
Someone mentioned cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yep.
Government will have to resort to lotteries, casinos, and other gimmicks to raise money since no one wants a tax increase. We live in an unhappy time where everyone wants MORE, but they want to pay LESS.
I wonder if any state is free from demands to cut taxes. Surely there is one progressive state that puts the public good ahead of the private pocket.
The library at Abita Springs gets a huge business and is tiny, but the local voters rejected a tax that would have expanded the building.
Same thing happened here--not closing the libraries, but parks, police, firemen are all being cut.
Makes me sad. And angry.
Well, Patti, the public good isn't usually served all that well in this country, as noted, which is why people are more likely to resent their governments here. Hawaii is perhaps the most complacent state when it comes to blithely accepting paying through the nose, and the social services there are...OKish...compared to at least some states (particularly as oil money thins out in Alaska). But there just isn't enough tangible evidence of government making a positive difference in enough people's lives in this country, which all the administrations nationally have furthered at least since Reagan's.
"People in Troy, Michigan are not poor by any stretch of the imagination."
That may have hit the nail on the head. The older I get, and the more different kinds of people I get to know, I am convinced that the more money someone has, the less willing they are to spend it on something that does not directly benefit them personally.
The more many people can afford, the less they want to pay for. And they sure as hell don;t want to pay for anything for anyone else. Americans' greatest fear is not terrorism; it's that someone, somewhere, is getting over on them. We'd rather let 100 kids go without than think one welfare queen jobbed us.
Dana, I'm not sure that's fair...however, those who know that a hundred kids benefit, at least, for every fraudulent slacker don't seem to get much of a platform to note this, or when Democratic politicians, usually don't bother to use the platforms they have. While the opponents of those children (by extension, at least) are persistently going on about the supposed Food-Stamp-Fueled Cadillacs. The general public under such circumstances is doing well to realize there's a reason why welfare isn't just a con game.
This is probably too late to catch your attention, Patti, but I just noticed this post today. It's a good one, too.
I've never been to Troy, Michigan, but I would bet what happened there was this:
Over the years, free-spending politicians doled out the money to their pet programs like there was no tomorrow. Then, when they ran out of other people's money, and needed more to slake their bottomless thirst, they insisted on a tax hike. NO, the voters said. ENOUGH!
Okay, so the politicians said, "What can we do to make these idiots pony up more money for us?" And the answer, whether it's Troy, Michigan, or any state or local government, is always, "Cut police and fire protection! Close the libraries!"
In other words, let's cut what the people REALLY want, not any of our little pet programs that we've been blowing money on all these years. I'll bet somewhere in the Troy government is a fully-staffed office of diversity management, and probably a sexual harassment sensitivity training office, and maybe even some kind of local global warming guy. My money says none of these frivolous programs will be touched, but police and fire? Expendable. Out they go!
I agree with your assessemnt of the Troy voters, and for that matter most voters. No one really educates themselves enough about an issue when it comes time to vote at the polls. I am surprised the council members did not realize this. To have a "special" election to raise taxes and expect the people to go for it was very shortsighted by the council members! They should have had this on the November ballot after people receive their property assesemnt. People might then realize the loss in revenue by their low property value.
By having an election just to raise property taxes, the only people you are going to get at the polls are the kee-jerk reactionaries. I am surprised council did not have the foresight to see this coming. Although I did vote for the millage, I was not at all surprised by the outcome.
And now we've done it again. Citizens put up a library proposal and our local tea party (same leaders as the Troy Citizens United) knocked it down by lying and cheating.
Sigh.
All the dirty laundry is at
http://keeptroystrong.blogspot.com/
I was appalled when I saw this.
Mike Dennis... you obviously have never been to Troy. The city has the lowest millage in all of southeast Michigan full service cities for 20 years and has had the highest rated services on the entire state for that same 20 years. The library was rated one of the top ten in the country. We are paying the price for management running the city on the absolute minimum and to achieve. Troy has reduced the tax (millage) rate 13 times over since 1973. When revenue dropped for other cities, they had a cushion (all of our neighbors pay a rate at least 30% more than we do... Birmingham is 50% higher.. Madison Heights is 100% higher), but Troy had no cushion. CNN/Money rated Troy one of the top 20 best places in the country to live just 3 years ago. However, a highly organized and divisive anti tax base that have no problem with Troy being half assed rather than the best.
William-you need to run for City Council.
I agree. Bill should run for council.
Troy,michigan is a super-rich city run by the super-rich.Troy,michigan has given the super-rich millions of tax money Zero-return equals NO LIBRARY, and is building a super Transit center,,*8 million bucks worth,,to give to greyhound bus company.
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