Just Politics

[StephanieVanbryce]

By the way --- what's the latest from King Obi on the Colorado BURNING DOWN situation. Does he know it's one of 57 states????

I must REMIND you my friend that You get the Government You PAY FOR..........and so did Colorado Springs .. a free market failure if I ever saw one ...
How about we end the Bush tax cuts, raise the capital gains tax, gut the defense department budget, and spend the money on things like fire prevention and new roads, bridges and the like? I'm willing to do it ... are you?

Then this!

In 2010, the citizens of Colorado Springs decided against raising taxes in order to pursue the Ayn Randian libertarian dream of the free market. All hail! [ http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/Colorado-Springs-DIY-government.html ]

As such, budget cuts resulted in slashing services – everything from firefighters and police to parks and museums. The budget for police and firefighting alone lost 5.5 million: [ http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473#ixzz1zCm1b2co ]

Small government conservatives in the city of Colorado Springs began slashing government services and taxes earlier this year and show no sign of slowing down. Everything from trash collection to streetlights to police coverage have been phased out in the quest to get closer to the free market model espoused by libertarians such as novelist Ayn Rand. The changes have turned Colorado Springs into something like a city-sized experiment in just how small government can get. So when pundits debate the Colorado Springs experiment, they’re also debating the hard-line libertarian philosophy behind that experiment. Does drastically cutting services and taxes really work?

Michelle Malkin herself praised her hometown for it:

“Self-reliance. Privatization. Thrift. Fiscal accountability. [ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2010/04/can-a-town-survive-with-nearly-no-government/24841/ ] The liberals in Denver and Washington could learn something from our Mountain West spirit if they could just get over their Colorado Springs Derangement Syndrome.”

Given Malkin’s love of cutting taxes and social services, her claims that the Obama Administration’s “neglect of the federal government’s aerial-tanker fleet raises acrid questions about its core public-safety priorities” is flat-out ridiculous.

As Southern Beale points out, Malkin ignores the “free market” reasons for the fleet’s decline:

As federal authorities confront the destructive start of what threatens to be one of the fiercest wildfire seasons in memory, they are relying on a fleet of ancient planes [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/us/fire-threat-up-as-vintage-air-arsenal-shrinks.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all ] converted from other purposes to do the dangerous, often deadly, work of skimming the smoldering treetops to bomb fires with water and flame retardant.

SNIPS ~~

The contractor-owned planes, refurbished from military use and leased by the United States Forest Service, have been hobbled by accidents and mechanical problems, leading to growing safety concerns and calls for a major overhaul. A decade ago, the government had 44 large tanker planes at its command. Now, with fires raging from California to Colorado to Wyoming, the regular fleet is down to nine.

Modern airplanes are available, some able to skim up a bellyful of water from a lake without even stopping to land and thus to conduct dozens of drops a day, but these are too expensive for the private contractors who fly the forest missions. Even the supply of younger military hand-me-downs has dried up. “There are no lightweight bombers being surplused anymore,” said Vincent Ambrosia, a forest fire expert at NASA.

“We’ve failed to invest,” said James E. Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, who led a blue-ribbon panel that examined the aging tankers in 2002, after two fiery crashes drew national attention. “We’re stepping back to these old tankers and old aircraft, and we’ve done nothing to develop any new technology.”

You see? YOU GET the GOVERNMENT that YOU PAY FOR! .... now how about another romney tax cut ? huh? ... .. Yeah..

This is what happens when you implement the sort of small government Tea Party nonsense that forms the basis of Mitt “We don’t need more firefighters” Romney’s economic policies.

And the Kicker? LOLOL.. The Mayor, Steve Bach of Colorado Springs ASKED Obama yesterday for the CASH to help out his FAILED ... free market experience

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/29/us/western-wildfires/index.html

I guess it’s easy to be a small government Tea Party conservative until the shit goes down in your backyard. Then, the government which previously did nothing but get all up in your liberty and infringe on your freeedumbs is suddenly your cash cow.