While conservatives lauded the Bush Tax Cuts, they have largely ignored the reality that they didn't do what they were intended to - stimulate the economy. But this cannot be brought up in modern socio-political discourse, as this would be "blaming Bush" for the economic ills that we are still facing today. But one has to wonder - who is at fault?
Back to Colorado Springs for a moment.
It seems that some "famous" residents of the conservative Mecca aren't too pleased with the fact that people are rightly pointing out how their ideology is fastly destroying their economic oasis:
I’m proud to call Colorado Springs home for myriad reasons — quality of life, cost of living, terrific schools, physical beauty, Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy, and great cultural amenities. For starters. The city leans conservative to libertarian, but is no monolith. There are “progressives” and Big Business statists and everything in between. Most importantly, politics does not poison and saturate every breath of the people who live here. They do not live to work. They work to live — bike, run, ski, climb, hike, play, explore, and enjoy their families.
Taxpayers in the Springs also happen to want to keep more of their hard-earned money away from government’s paws. They want the government to make do with less. Just like everyone else.
Which has led liberal outsiders to decry the city as it grapples with tough economic times.
That's Michelle Malkin attempting to defend the anti-tax status of her beloved, free-market, capitalist city. And much in the same way that the Bush Tax Cuts didn't help America in the least, a city almost literally dependant on nothing more than sales-taxes is one that was doomed to failure from it's very inception.
Not just within the city limits of Colorado Springs, but across the country, how exactly did giving more money back to the rich do anything to better the economy? In theory, from my limited understanding of how The Bush Tax Cuts were intended to work, the richer have more money to pump back into the economy and therefor we are all better off, as that money is used to re-oil the metaphorical gears of America. But that didn't happen, did it?
Many that I have debated over the past year on the cost, both literal and speculative, of the Bush Tax Cuts have stated that everyone got something back. And while this is barely true - even in the technical sense - it was the top 1% that could actually afford "keep" their money, while the remainder of the American people struggled with saving.
It can certainly be chalked up to "choice" and "responsibility" in spending, but when one has to chose between going to college and attaining a goal versus staying at home with your parent and attempting to make money working at the local factory, it really isn't much of a choice. Many people get stuck in that rut, as the affordability aspect of America has slipped further and further from people's reach.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
The point is that taxes in places like Colorado Springs are necessary to maintain services like the fire department, the police, schools, roads, and the "physical beauty" of those lovely parks that Malkin likely sits at while writing her screeds. When there is no money to maintain the city, the city fails - and Colorado Springs is a conservative experiment that failed, just like The Bush Tax Cuts.
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