In the rural West, residents choose low taxes over law enforcement [View all]

[alarimer]

https://www.revealnews.org/article/in-the-rural-west-residents-choose-low-taxes-over-law-enforcement/


Josephine isn’t the only county in trouble. The federal government has been helping keep swaths of rural America on economic life support for years. Since 2000, it’s paid billions of dollars to 41 states hit hard by the timber industry’s decline. But that money, which has been decreasing steadily, could dry up soon. And if it does, Daniel and his department will be walloped by the fallout.

A countywide tax levy could help stave off a public safety emergency. But efforts to pass one have gone nowhere, thanks to a right-leaning populace ardently opposed to an increase. In fact, since 2012, a proposed levy has failed four times, most recently in May 2015. This year, it didn’t even make the ballot.

Residents, meanwhile, enjoy the lowest property tax rates of any county in Oregon: 58 cents per $1,000 of assessed value – less than a quarter of the state’s average.

I listened to this Reveal episode while running just now and I am completely infuriated. This is a small county, but the same thing has happened in Kansas, for example. We used to have a social contract: taxes were the price we paid for a civilized society; now we have people hellbent on destroying that. And the Democrats never really make a very good case (or maybe they are too afraid of being voted out) that higher taxes are a good thing. Or at least adequate taxes for funding basic services.