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[Syriel]

Who needs government services, right?

No sales tax. Limited property tax increases. A county which pays 60% less in taxes than the rest of the state (and voted for 2/3 for Trump) would rather let essential government services die than provide the basics for their citizens because "MUH TAXES!"

Inside the big wood-paneled downtown library here, a sign spells out the future in four words. Come June 1, “All services will cease.”

For generations in America, small cities like this declared their optimism and civic purpose with grand libraries that rose above the clutter of daily life and commerce. But last fall, Douglas County residents voted down a ballot measure that would have added about $6 a month to the tax bill on a median-priced home and saved the libraries from a funding crisis. So this spring, it has been lights out, one by one, for the system’s 11 branches. The Roseburg central library here is the last to go.

“We pay enough taxes,” said Zach Holly, an auto repair worker in a shop a few blocks from the library who said his vote against the tax was not about libraries at all, but government waste. “I vote against taxes, across the board,” he said.

If a crime is reported after midnight there, best not hold your breath for a response, since cuts to the sheriff’s budget have meant the end of round-the-clock staffing. Even conducting an election this fall could be beyond reach, said Reneé Kolen, the Curry County clerk, who has one full-time staff member left in her elections division, and is facing another possible 30 percent cut in funding this year in her budget.

The property tax rate in Curry County is less than a quarter of the statewide average. Douglas County residents pay about 60 percent less than most state residents.

President Trump’s plan to overhaul the nation’s corporate and personal income-tax systems adds another wrinkle. His proposal would not directly affect local property tax rates, but the ripple effects, several local officials said, could be profound and unpredictable. More money in voters’ wallets from tax cuts in Washington could reduce the sting in asking people to pay more at home, or it could just reinforce the idea that all taxes are meant to go down.

Oregon has no state sales tax, and also limits some property tax growth rates, through laws passed in the 1990s.

So what does life in government retreat look like?

It looks like the house on Hubbard Creek Road in Curry County, where owners went for more than 10 years without paying any property taxes at all because the county assessor’s office couldn’t field enough workers to go out and inspect. The house, nestled in the woods with a tidy blue roof and skylights, dodged more than $8,500 in property taxes that would have gone to support the schools, fire district and sheriff, because government had gotten too small to even ask. So things fall even further, with cuts to agencies that actually bring in revenue prompting further cuts down the line.

Source:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/where-anti-tax-fervor-means-all-services-will-cease/ar-BBB4Pye

 

[Kyzer]

Bold move, cotton. Lets see how it works out for them.

 

[capitalCORN]

Cuz private fire service served people so well before....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting

 

[yanipheonu]

If someone can point to any given civilization that has somehow became great because they had no taxes, maybe they might start making a point.

I hate paying them too but we, uh, kinda need taxes.

Its insane that "fuck you got mine" can lead to not even wanting basic public needs. I doubt that'll end well lol

 

[The Technomancer]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

 

[capitalCORN]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

4k TVs are expensive fam.

 

[Piggus]

One of my coworkers is leaving because her boyfriend got a job in Curry county. Oops! Lol

 

[KernelPanic]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

It's no loss if you don't read anyway.

 

[Kayhan]

Even ancient civilizations with virtually no services except for the military had taxes.

 

[wedca]

I like driving on a road so I think taxes are important.

 

[Couleurs]

Reminds me of an old post from Something Awful

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity
generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of
Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water
utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see
what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like,
using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of
Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined
as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept
accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the
U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built
by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly
stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the
Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal
Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the
U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to
the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals
which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back
home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence
because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's
inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables, thanks
to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com
and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the
government can't do anything right.

 

[demosthenes]

Let these towns fall apart.

 

[Jarmel]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

Listen, that can go towards an Xbox Live subscription. All the education a growing child needs.

 

[a Master Ninja]

You'd think the desire to maintain property value would outweigh not wanting to pay taxes. I mean, good luck ever selling a house in a town with no schools or emergency services.

 

[Lkr]

Reminds me of an old post from Something Awful

lol I remember reading a variation of this a while back. There's also a funny YouTube with an old dude making a similar argument about how much better we would be in a country without taxes because then it wouldn't be wasted on useless shit like roads.

Some guy in the article said some stupid shit about how we are better off with less people on government payroll. I never understood this shortsighted argument. You want more people impoverished?

Maybe these people will learn their lesson when the county is entirely out of money and everyone is laughing at them when a wildfire spreads and the unnecessary, bloated, government run fire department isn't there to protect their property or families.

 

[shawnbuddy]

This worked out great for Somalia.

 

[Moosichu]

When a state is worthless and has no power, money - backed by the state - is worth no more than the paper it is printed on.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Unfortunately this seems like an inherent weakness in human psychology. People get used to things. They forget where those things come from.

Collective society creates libraries, clean water, good roads, green forests. Generations come to take those things for granted as "the way things are". Then they get angry that someone keeps "stealing their money". How much more pleasant life would be, if only they had no taxes AND all the nice things around them that are part of their pleasant life.

 

[FinaruDensetsu]

Don't need libraries when you can't read.

 

[Ponn]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

It goes further than that with these people worried about pocket change in their taxes not realizing how crowd sourcing with taxes actually makes these services cheaper for them. Most of the services needed would still be around because of necessity and just be privatized with their own costs, now profit driven. Enjoy paying your Firefighter, Police, school, road tolls, DMV, etc privatized charges dumbasses.

Unfortunately this seems like an inherent weakness in human psychology. People get used to things. They forget where those things come from.

Collective society creates libraries, clean water, good roads, green forests. Generations come to take those things for granted as "the way things are". Then they get angry that someone keeps "stealing their money". How much more pleasant life would be, if only they had no taxes AND all the nice things around them that are part of their pleasant life.

A virtual Socialist utopia...uh, wait a minute no bootstraps and all that.

 

[shawnbuddy]

Oh, if they REALLY need something they'll expect it to be provided. They just don't want to pay for it.

It's just like all these libertarians who refuse to pay into healthcare because they're currently healthy and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Do you think they're going to quietly die if they get sick? Nah, they know some kindly liberal will save them. It's freeloading disguised as self-reliance.

 

[thefro]

Good luck getting companies to move there if the schools are shit. Remember they always get sweet tax incentives so the company itself won't care about property tax rates.

 

[Alex_Mexico]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

Reminds me of an old post from Something Awful

The end got me lmao. Well, I shouldn't laugh seeing how things are going.

 

[Syriel]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

Nearly every major country has sales taxes. Not having sales taxes is the oddity, not the norm.

 

[GatorBait]

Unfortunately this seems like an inherent weakness in human psychology. People get used to things. They forget where those things come from.

Collective society creates libraries, clean water, good roads, green forests. Generations come to take those things for granted as "the way things are". Then they get angry that someone keeps "stealing their money". How much more pleasant life would be, if only they had no taxes AND all the nice things around them that are part of their pleasant life.

Somewhat related, but this also reminds me of "workers' rights." People literally (and I mean literally, not figuratively) fought and died to obtain basic safety and quality of life rights (like the 8-hour workday, sick time, etc.), but most people today seem to be so divorced from the time and place that history occurred that they eagerly give up those rights without a second thought, in part, due to unquestioned partisan principles. It's almost as if people can't comprehend the erosion of those rights even occurring until they're already gone.

 

[chaosblade]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

The US is just weird because the taxes aren't included in the listed price like VAT in a lot of other countries.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

Oh, if they REALLY need something they'll expect it to be provided. They just don't want to pay for it.

It's just like all these libertarians who refuse to pay into healthcare because they're currently healthy and everyone else can go fuck themselves. Do you think they're going to quietly die if they get sick? Nah, they know some kindly liberal will save them. It's freeloading disguised as self-reliance.

Further following in the foot steps of their hypocritical leader, Ayn Rand.

 

[Lkr]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

Pshhh tourist taxes are the best. I've lived in Orlando long enough to know that tourists keep our economy and public services going.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Good luck getting companies to move there if the schools are shit. Remember they always get sweet tax incentives so the company itself won't care about property tax rates.

Then they complain about economic anxiety and vote for great leaders like Trump to save us all.

 

[Piggus]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

Oregon hasn't had a sales tax for decades, and there's no indication that will change. Even in liberal counties, people don't want it. We make up for it with a state income tax instead, and our property taxes are relatively high.

 

[chaosblade]

Oregon hasn't had a sales tax for decades, and there's no indication that will change. Even in liberal counties, people don't want it. We make up for it with a state income tax instead, and our property taxes are relatively high.

Sales tax is regressive so it makes sense more liberal counties wouldn't want it.

 

[Sunster]

then when their town goes to shit they will blame immigrants.

 

[Ponn]

Pshhh tourist taxes are the best. I've lived in Orlando long enough to know that tourists keep our economy and public services going.

Bingo. Its nice not having state tax here, just about the only thing Florida has going for it. We are a big tourist destination though and those people are making ample use of our infrastructure so its only fair they pay a fair share.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

in my country high taxes help pay for universal healthcare, free education, pensions, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, subsidized public transportation, research and much more

taxes are fucking awesome

 

[capitalCORN]

in my country high taxes help pay for universal healthcare, free education, pensions, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, subsidized public transportation, research and much more

taxes are fucking awesome

HELL YEAH!

 

[Syriel]

in my country high taxes help pay for universal healthcare, free education, pensions, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, subsidized public transportation, research and much more

taxes are fucking awesome

I often wonder if Americans would be more accepting of taxes if they were "hidden" much like VAT in Europe.

As an example, most people overpay for cell phone service by subscribing to unlimited plans, but they like the security of it all.

If America adopted VAT for sales tax, and simply charged businesses based on salary paid (so that advertised salary was always after tax, w/no deductions) would people feel as "cheated" so to speak?

There is a strange mental component where most folks see a number on a piece of paper and think "MINE" whereas if that number was never there, they'd not give it a second thought. "Oh, that's just a cost the company has to pay."

 

[Deleted member 80556]

in my country high taxes help pay for universal healthcare, free education, pensions, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, subsidized public transportation, research and much more

taxes are fucking awesome

I once nagged my brother when he suggested he might evade taxes eventually and told me "well you'd do it too!", I replied I wouldn't because taxes do all of these things that are great for society. It's something so simple and yet all the people think that taxes do are go into the pockets of people in the capital cities.

 

[Sub_Level]

I think its gonna take some widespread suffering before we change our american attitude towards taxes. When the water from the sink stops running and the lights don't turn on.

 

[gutter_trash]

I blame the Founding Fathers for this

It is a cultural culmination since the American ruling Elite driven by greed succeeded in manipulating the peasant class that "taxes are bad"

 

[Protein]

Red states will just blame Big Gubba'mint when their rural towns become third world towns. Then they'll cut even more taxes to attempt to fix the problem.

 

[Windam]

How far gone do you have to be to want to save $72 a year so your county's library system doesn't go under?

The hell is a library?

 

[capitalCORN]

The hell is a library?

It's like Blockbuster for books, but they still exist, and are free.

 

[PJV3]

You're buying a decent society, Taxes need a rebrand at this point.

 

[Polk]

As a non-American who loves to visit the US as a tourist with relative frequency ther s nothing that would make me happier than eliminating the sales tax. I'm never happy paying 30 bucks of taxes for a $300 usd Switch I ordered off of Amazon when I don't even live there.

Having said that, taxes are needed! And the GOP is the fucking worst.

There's no TaxFree equivalent in US? When you are buying something in EU and you live outside EU you can get VAT back.

 

[sk3]

"The hard right"? Are we just inventing new terms every other day now?

It's called libertarianism.

 

[Brian Griffin]

I often wonder if Americans would be more accepting of taxes if they were "hidden" much like VAT in Europe.

As an example, most people overpay for cell phone service by subscribing to unlimited plans, but they like the security of it all.

If America adopted VAT for sales tax, and simply charged businesses based on salary paid (so that advertised salary was always after tax, w/no deductions) would people feel as "cheated" so to speak?

There is a strange mental component where most folks see a number on a piece of paper and think "MINE" whereas if that number was never there, they'd not give it a second thought. "Oh, that's just a cost the company has to pay."

This would most definitely change things over time. I understand the importance of taxes but it still irks me a bit to go through the process of seeing a price tag, deciding to buy the item, and then be charged a higher price than I had made my decision on. It's a tiny bit of dissonance that just makes buying things kinda shitty at times, even if you imagine the price with tax included from the start. If businesses had price tags with nice round numbers that included the tax so when it said $100 you paid $100 people attitude towards taxes would improve because they wouldn't be seen as much.

It would also help even more if our paychecks actually showed what the hell the taxes went towards. I think I have just one line that says "Federal" on it with no breakdown. Michael Moore's latest doc showed EU countries where they broke it down so you could see that you were paying for police, fire, health care, social security, public schools, etc.

 

[Protein]

in my country high taxes help pay for universal healthcare, free education, pensions, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, subsidized public transportation, research and much more

taxes are fucking awesome

But I'm fucking rich so I don't need any of that shit. I'm not gonna pay with ma hard-earned tax dollars to fund designer purse-wearing, foodstamps for twelve kids-abusing, iPhone-buying, steak and lobster-eating, lazy Mexicans. What we need is a huge fucking wall, double the size of our military, and less taxes in order to save money.

 

[capitalCORN]

"The hard right"? Are we just inventing new terms every other day now?

It's called libertarianism.

Socially liberal is not hard right. Hard right is fascism. Which funnily involves a LOT of taxes.

 

[Vital Tundra]

No round the clock police? Holy hell that sounds horrible.