With all the brouhaha over President Trump’s tax plan that gives tax cuts to over 80% of American taxpayers, there was some grumbling from states with absurdly high state and local taxes. You see, these states have so grossly mismanaged their own budgets and finances that they yolk their citizenry with high taxes to cover the state government’s malfeasance.
If it began and ended within the boundaries of those states it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Alas that is not the case.
Citizens of these states, (among the most egregious being California, New York and Connecticut) have heretofore blithely went along with it because they could easily write off their high state taxes on their federal tax return. In effect, forcing those of us who do not have high state taxes, or even more so for states with NO income tax (FL, TX, WY, AK etc) to subsidize their state’s poor governance.
How poor you ask?
Well, having lived in California for a bit while working for Gun Owners of America in their western office, I can say that I have seen a lot of crazy in the Golden State, but this recent story out of Palm Springs is the equivalent to a Kansas City Shuffle, where you think its going one way and then POW, the stupid smacks you right in the face.
The Palm Springs Municipal Golf Course, also known as the Tahquitz Creek Golf Course, has a row of trees that are blocking the view of the adjoining neighborhood from seeing the course and vice versa. From the golf course you would just assume that it is a small forest marking the end of play, from the houses you have a privacy wall of green.
Residents contend that in the 1950’s and 60’s the trees were planted to separate the golf course from the predominantly black neighborhood. That may very well be the case…or it might just be a coincidence, no one really offered any proof to this but I am willing to concede the possibility.
Ok, so far I am picking up what they are laying down. Public course, racist trees were used as segregation and the neighborhood suffers from lower property value since they cannot in good consciousness say their homes are on a golf course.
I’m actually on board with this and if the city wants to tear down the trees on the golf course they own in order to appease the residents, fantastic.
This is where the Kansas City Shuffle comes into play.
And no, it’s not the ludicrous $169,000 that anyone knows if they offered a lumber mill would send a private tree service to do the work for a fraction of the cost, possibly for free, in exchange for the lumber. Of course, the public unions would be all up in arms and hence it costs almost $1000 a tree.
No, that’s not the rub. The rub is the four demands that residents made and that the Palm Springs City Council agreed upon.
Like I said, you don’t like the racist trees, chop em down. Fine, good. But to spend money on basically replacing the “racist trees” with other trees, walls and netting…all so they would do the job the first set of trees did, at a price tag that, knowing California, will end up in 7 digits, is so far beyond ridiculous I feel I need to invent a new word just to encompass the scope of how stupid this move is.
This is what the taxpayers of Palm Springs, and to a larger extent the taxpayers of California pay for on the West Coast….replacing racist trees with not racist trees.
And that, dear friends, is why they should NOT get their taxes subsidized by the rest of the country. California if you want to pay for stupid, go nuts…but don’t pass the hat around during tax time thinking that the rest of the country wants to dip their toes in your crazy.
On a side note, the city of Palm Springs is about to deforest an entire tract of land and environmentalists are deafeningly silent. Guess they’d only care if the Golf Course was owned by Trump.
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