Lower Taxes Not Always Better

[Admiral Yi]

I guess this means we all agree now that Katrina was the local's fault too?

[Razgovory]

Our local fire department want to change the tax scheme because the fire department is paid by city property tax and 45% of their calls come from outside the city.  So they wish to switch over to a sales tax so some of them will at least pay a little bit.

[Josephus]

But yeah, they chose to vote for idiots who wanted to cut funding for public services. I have no pity for red states and people who vote Republican. They can all burn.

But if we find there are 100 Democrat voters should we not save them?
What if there are 50?
10?
If there is one democrat voter should we not save them?

[Maximus]

But if we find there are 100 Democrat voters should we not save them?
What if there are 50?
10?
If there is one democrat voter should we not save them?

[MadImmortalMan]

The biggest problem we have fighting fires atm is the lack of aircraft. A couple of crashes a while ago got people spooked about the planes and choppers used to drop water and chems on them, and fires in the mountains are often impossible to reach on land.

The feds grounded a large percentage of them. I heard they thought they weren't as effective, they had safety concerns, environmentalist groups were complaining about the chemicals, or it was budget cuts. I don't know which is the real reason, but I could put a probability on it.

The local fire departments and not tasked with taking care of a burning national forest. That's not what they are built for, and there's no realistic budgetary increase they could get that would make up that capacity.

[The Brain]

Take off and soak it from orbit.

[alfred russel]

Turns out that cutting the fire fighting and police budgets means that the response to wild fires is less effective and looting is harder to control.

Surprising.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/wildfire-tests-police-force-in-colorado-anti-tax-movement-s-home.html

That's pretty alarming.  Something needs to be done about this.  How about some tax cuts?

[alfred russel]

Turns out that cutting the fire fighting and police budgets means that the response to wild fires is less effective and looting is harder to control.

Surprising.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-02/wildfire-tests-police-force-in-colorado-anti-tax-movement-s-home.html

Not to take issue too much, but...I was recently listening to a speaker that was discussing how the effectiveness of wild fire containment has rather dramatically altered US ecology. It seems that wildfires were much more common before the modern age and forests went through a cycle of burning and regrowth. We've broken the cycle, and the wildlife that thrives now isn't the same as before.

[CountDeMoney]

I guess this means we all agree now that Katrina was the local's fault too?

No, just their suffering.

[CountDeMoney]

The biggest problem we have fighting fires atm is the lack of aircraft. A couple of crashes a while ago got people spooked about the planes and choppers used to drop water and chems on them, and fires in the mountains are often impossible to reach on land.

The feds grounded a large percentage of them. I heard they thought they weren't as effective, they had safety concerns, environmentalist groups were complaining about the chemicals, or it was budget cuts. I don't know which is the real reason, but I could put a probability on it.

The local fire departments and not tasked with taking care of a burning national forest. That's not what they are built for, and there's no realistic budgetary increase they could get that would make up that capacity.

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,7888.msg439222.html#msg439222