I’ve been mulling over a Facebook comment to my post a week or so ago about the insanity of Indiana’s single-minded focus on low taxes as the magic medicine for everything and anything that ails us.
A reader named Brian wrote
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I think this comment highlights a reality that all too often gets buried in the zealotry of the Left/Right debate: the fundamental question we face, especially in cities, isn’t whether we will pay for services. It’s how.
Most of us are unwilling to forgo police and fire protection, garbage collection, paved streets, and schools for our children. Most of us, if survey data is to be believed, also want convenient and reliable public transportation, parks and bike paths. Many of us are undoubtedly willing to forgo sports arenas and cricket fields, but we all want and need museums and libraries, as well as the more basic necessities and amenities that make life in urban areas attractive.
Those necessities and amenities cost money, but they cost less when we provide them collectively.
Some day, when time permits, I want to do an experiment. I want to calculate what it would cost to procure these services in the private marketplace. How much would I have to spend to hire private security, contract for fire protection, find a scavenger service to pick up my trash, etc.? (I don’t know how I would even arrange street paving and snow removal–perhaps through a cooperative with my neighbors? And what about sewers? Would private providers charge to hook in, or would we all further damage the environment with private septic systems?) I could pay to use private parks–or join a country club if I could afford that–and of course I’d have no option but to have the considerable expense of a car.
That sort of transactional existence doesn’t sound very attractive, and it would significantly disadvantage poor folks, but let’s assume those considerations aren’t relevant. (They sure aren’t to many of our lawmakers.) One thing seems clear: the costs involved would be far in excess of what I pay in property taxes.
The point is, our interminable debate about “taxes” and “tax rates” is profoundly misleading. We have no choice but to provide local governments with the funds needed to provide a reasonable quality of communal life.
We can legitimately argue about cronyism, whether a given administration is operating efficiently, and about whether obvious “extras” like sports arenas are justified, but when we make a virtue of starving the public sector of basic operating income, we shouldn’t be shocked when local politicians rob Peter to pay Paul by selling off public goods and trading our long-term interests for short-term cash.
Think about that the next time you flush.
Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. I’m more than happy to pay them as long as it doesn’t remove my rights to have free will. Or to be able to find a better quality of life somewhere else. That’s my paradise.
The total would probably look like the ones I used to see for hiring replacements for everything a stay at home mom does. Nanny, laundry service, housekeeper, handy person, gardening service, chauffeur, etc. The total tended to be quite high
Thanks Prof K. I totally agree. I also am from Dane Co WI (Madison etc). I still maintain a home up there. When in town, I hear the snow plow clearing my little street while I am still in bed. The water froze at the WI house. The City is out today unfreezing the line, FOR FREE. I find it hard to imagine INDY doing that. Your friend is right. It is a VERY different world. Dane count is an island of blue with lots of lakes and beauty. But gosh it is cold up there. The lake ice is 3′ thick this year.
Your comments are exactly what everyone “crying” about taxes needs to read and hear repeatedly! I personally am comfortable paying even more in taxes if I could be assured that no child would go to school or to bed hungry; that public schools in the city of Chicago, Detroit, Washington, DC, etc. could be equal ( quality teachers and facilities) to those public schools in Winnetka, Grosse Pointe, Bloomfield, Falls Church and Fairfax. This is America and our taxes should assure equality of public services regardless of personal income, wealth or location.
I prefer to call them civilization fees.
Since moving to Indianapolis decades ago my observation over time has been that Public Parks and Public Transportation is treated as a liability by our politicians. Do any members of the City Council or Mayor take a bus to work?? Would they even take a bus ride?
The idea among our politicians in Indiana is if you cannot afford to buy a membership in a country club, or afford a new car too bad. If you cannot afford to live a gated community too bad about the crime. The White River could have been a great recreational area, but it should be renamed the Central Indiana Industrial and Sanitary Canal.
I would like the taxes I pay go to making the City a liveable place for all, not laundered into the hands of Mega-Billionaires for their Sports Stadiums or other Crony-Capitalists.
I don’t have any experience with Wisconsin, But I have a lot of experience with Indianapolis. It’s not that i’m opposed to paying higher taxes, I’m opposed to the waste , fraud and corruption that I have witnessed first hand. I also don’t believe in giving Jimmy Irsay billions of dollars in tax money, But we owe more than 3 times what it cost to build the hoosier dome and it’s not even standing. I watched the city debacle of the new library etc. etc. In my opinion Steve Goldsmith had it wright with public and private interprise, He just didn’t stick around long enough to see it through. We have to have a trust but verify system! Throwing money at problems alone is not the solution.
Well said, as usual, Sheila. When you do your calculations, remember to include a charge for the time you will spend negotiating and contracting for all of those services. Having lived in a self-managing condominium in the past, and being part of the self-management, I can tell you that that the time involved is substantial — and we were a very efficient association.
You know what they say: “You get what you pay for,” and I don’t think we’re getting very much.