by Primo Encarnación

I once became an elected official in the town where I grew up. I don’t know how things work, elsewhere, but all this anti-tax nutjobbery severely hurt us through time. It did, as its proponents promise, encourage creativity in stretching our ever-shrinking dollars, but not in good ways. Instead of re-paving streets on a schedule that would take 16 years to do the whole town, we extended that to 22 years.   We used referenda to float bond issues, which sometimes lost, resulting in crumbling schools and “temporary” classrooms in sweltering trailers. We entered into an agreement with those infamous “red light” camera folks, whereby we got free cameras and part of the revenue – only part! – there from.

All these deals with various devils bought us some measure of annual budget comfort, but shutting off the spigots and mandating balanced budgets left us with zero governing comfort as our rainy day fund balances disappeared.

This was partly ameliorated where I lived by the real-estate boom of the 1990s, but consider the position today of all the towns that rely on property taxes to provide basic services in the wake of the bust. And those who rely on sales or income taxes as real incomes fall among the taxees. There’s no margin of error. Once the economy takes one of the dives that are inevitable in the boom-and-bust cycle of unregulated supply-siderism, then the crippled town budgets fall to pieces, as do the towns.  It’s the vicious cycle of Reagonomics, which deserves burial alongside himself.

Police departments, too, were faced with the same difficulty of providing services while making ends meet. Homeland security provided a great way for police departments to cowboy up on items like body armor, armored cars and armor-piercing bullets. But when it came to paying actual salaries, putting cops in cars, on foot, on bikes or even on horses in trouble-prone areas, the ounce of prevention was more expensive than the shit-ton of cure that a SWAT visit entails.

Which is why it comes as no surprise that the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) came to the same conclusion. Their recently released report about St. Louis County (think Ferguson) says an “inappropriate and misguided mission has been thrust upon the police in many communities: the need to generate large sums of revenue for their city governments.”

Which surprised PERF, apparently. They were shocked, SHOCKED, I say! to find out of control law enforcement balancing city books on the backs of the poor (like everyone else in the oligarchy.) “PERF has never before encountered what we have seen in parts of St. Louis County.”

Then they haven’t been looking.

This cheesecake fresh from the oven.

The Arizona Republic reports that when the family in Scottsdale, Ariz., pulled their dessert out of the oven, it cracked as it cooled and formed a crucifix.

The family members, who have not given their names publicly, say the crucifix is a message.

The family calls it a “holiday miracle.”

Yeah, okay, but I think the real message is that you can’t cook for crap.

Thanks to Barbie for the heads up.

Ben Carson just announced that he’s running for president, too.

This is a physician who said that Obamacare was the worse thing to happen to this country since slavery.  And that the United States was Just! Like! Hitler!

He once suggested that Christian bakers might poison the wedding cakes of gay people.

He eats bullets for breakfast and spends the rest of the day shooting off his mouth.

He’s welcome to the clown car.  But I imagine the Republicans will make him sit in the back seat.

Well, there’s a cure for the Monday morning blues, my friends:

Get Carly Florin to announce that she’s running for president every Monday morning.  Then you can start the day with a giggle, knowing that we’ll get to hear more about how liberal environmentalists caused the drought in California and how she really didn’t wreck Hewlett-Packard.

I kinda suspect she’ll be just as successful as she was for Barbara Boxer’s senate seat.

UPDATE:  http://carlyfiorina.org

If you hang around the beauty salon long enough, you will get to meet every goofball who ever set foot in Texas.

Pamela Geller is one of them.  She is a woman itching to get somebody shot.  She is the most virulent anti-Muslim person on the face of the damn western hemisphere.

She tried to speak here a couple of years ago and we did a peaceful protest.  That was when she was claiming that President Obama was the love chid of Malcolm X.

Well, she held a “Draw Muhammed Contest” in Garland, Texas (think Dallas) and, as could be predicted, gun men showed up.  They shot an unarmed security guard.  Police returned fire and killed both of them.

Geller was dancing in the streets.  She could not have been happier even if Roy Rogers rode up on Trigger.

One of the suspects has been identified.

Look, I am a defender of free speech.  I will defend until my death the right of somebody to say hateful things wherever and whenever they want.  I am also a believer in personal responsibility.  You should be willing to take personal responsibility for your free speech and not expect an unarmed security guard to take a bullet for what you want to say.

Pam Geller can kiss my bible butt.

About 11 dozen of you people have sent me this link from Jim Wright at Stonekettle Kitchen, one of the funniest and smartest people on the internet machine.

You warn me that Jim uses profanity.  In Texas, we call that cussing a blue streak but I truly admire his ability to use profanity creatively.  So few people can pull that off.

I am one of his many, many fans.  But, thank you guys for checking to make sure I was.