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Comment by oiuew83 | Hacker News Reader

The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance.

In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open.

Another counties entire sheriff's department resigned recently, due to lack of funding to properly staff the office; they were all burning the candle at both ends.

There are other examples of this behavior over the last decade that are easily Googled, so I'll avoid posting it all.

If you talk to these people, or see their commentaries online, many of them are thinking they'll just make taxes low, and of course someone will build a factory, in the middle of nowhere, with a poorly informed workforce, and no social services.

The locals don't want to shoulder the cost of education and security, but of course some private business owner will.

View on HN

That seems part of a larger pattern.

The excellent book _Sundown Towns_ [1] pointed out something I had never noticed. People from suburbs and exurbs expect without question to be able to use big-city facilities. E.g., parks, libraries, and all manner of for- and non-profit organizations. But suburbs and exurbs often either restrict facilities to residents (as with parks) or don't have them at all (as with drug treatment centers, halfway houses, homeless support, hospitals).

That worked well enough for the suburbanites in the early decades of suburbanization; well-off people moved out of town and stopped paying for the central facilities. But as those communities become less homogeneous over the generations, they too started needing drug treatment, homeless support, etc. Except that the residents are very used to low taxes, so city managers don't have the money to fix things.

I get the desire for low taxes; who doesn't like as low a price as possible? But there's a toxic combination of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking and pure IGMFY out there that seems so misguided to me. I don't have kids myself, but I still believe strongly in making things better for the next generation and the one after that.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...

> The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance.

Are you sure? I am not sure about this instance, but in many other rural instances where these measures are voted against, it's not out of ignorance. Rather it's out of disagreement with money mismanagement. Again, can't speak to this case in particular, but too often outsiders judge these actions by voters as anti-funding instead of anti-waste. Then they call them ignorant and wonder why they vote the way they do in larger elections that do affect them. On the opposite end, I am seeing more and more people guilting their fellow citizens into raising taxes because something can't be funded otherwise as though the amount currently taxed isn't enough. Nobody ever wants to fix/reroute budget-making/spending at the top, they just want to assume you need to take more to fund anything and label their peers as ignorant who disagree (not saying you are doing this because, again, I don't know about that county in Oregon).

I agree that it's short-sighted to assume ignorance in these cases. Selfishness is a major factor as well.

I suppose technically, with regards to money, the selfishness factor grows alongside increased poverty. A pretty easy target to be sure.

The libraries needed more funding because county revenues were plummeting as the timber industry declined in the area. Maybe residents also felt the libraries were being mismanaged, but the crisis wasn't brought about by ballooning library budgets.

In hard times, prioritization is required. Mismanagement can include the mismanaging of these priorities by reducing choice to more taxes or less library. If, as these citizens have fallen on hard times, the library actually was at the bottom rung of the prioritization ladder for funds, it is reasonable for it to be cut first. The appalling thing is blaming those on hard times for not ponying up more money. A lowering tide affects all boats so to speak.

Ive lived in small towns like these where everything got defunded. Maybe there were a few individuals who cared about mismanagement of funds. The majority, and the vocal ones, were saying "Why should I pay for schools when my kids have graduated?", "Why should I pay for fixing the roads when I live on a state maintained road?", "Why should I pay for firefighters when no one's house has burned down in my neighborhood".

They are explicitly anti-funding and of a "fuck you, I got mine" mentality

And I've seen it where they had to basically rework budgets from scratch and prosecute officials mismanaging funds that sowed decades of distrust in the system. Maybe there were a few individuals who actually cared about funding important items and being fiscally responsible. Is your anecdote more apropos than mine or are these just anecdotes?

> They are explicitly anti-funding

"They" who? All the voters against this tax increase? The small towns you lived in? People that disagree?

> anti-funding instead of anti-waste

A decade ago there were big fires in San Diego county which overwhelmed the dramatically underfunded county fire department and required other counties and the state to send help. Even still, a huge area burned and many structures were destroyed.

2 months later, the county heavily voted against a ballot measure which would slightly increase taxes to fund county fire suppression. Because “okay my neighbor’s house just burned to the ground, but it won’t ever happen to me so why should I pay to prevent it?”

This is not about “anti-waste”. There are quite simply a large number of people in the USA (encouraged in their beliefs by decades of far-right propaganda) who don’t believe in paying for public services. The same people are the first to start begging and whining for state/federal support the moment anything goes wrong for themselves personally.

This is what I'm talking about. You are telling other people that their votes were about. There was no room in the existing budget for fire suppression? Maybe they think the people that are clearly not very good at fire suppression shouldn't be given another chance? You really think they all thought "okay my neighbor's house just burned to the ground, but it won’t ever happen to me so why should I pay to prevent it?" The real propaganda is government mismanagers forcing you against your fellow citizen by making a vote against a tax increase for something to be a vote against that something. And, suppose that everyone voting against are ignorant and potential beggars/whiners and that there was no other reason they disagreed with the fire suppression and tax increase measure, this anecdote is not enough to support the general assumptions about why people vote against tax increases.

Your comment seems to suggest that there's just extra money in a budget for whatever. After years of slim budgets the easy things have already been cut out of budgets. At a state level with switching state governments, the new people are always looking for waste to hold over the heads of the incumbents. After a while there might not be much left to cut.

I'm employed by a county EMS agency, and we see this all too often. Everyone wants a 5 minute 911 response time, even out in the far reaches of the county. The county has a population of about 45,000 people and is about 1000 square miles. The small towns out in the east part that generate maybe 10 911 calls a month want us to station a 24/7 advanced life support ambulance in the area, yet continue to vote down any sort of tax increase to pay for it. We can't even get them to contribute donations in lieu of tax increases for the service. As a result, we really can't go ahead and just do it because we literally can't afford it. state/federal tax revenue is low enough as it is and medicare reimbursements for EMS are awful.

You're right.. there are a lot of people that just do not believe in paying for any public services. A lot of "healthcare should be free for all" types that will not entertain the idea of paying for it through taxes.

Well, like all things, there are a range of opinions. Point taken.

My anecdotal experiences, talking to people online (mostly Reddit) and in-person (I grew up in rural midwest, have an affinity for those small towns, but live in PDX, and like to road trip to those areas), the reason there are no jobs is because taxes keep businesses away.

I don't see the problem here, though I am questioning who's providing police services in that county now.

If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments.

As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they deserve.

Parent post didn't use the word wrong, the statement was that they're killing their communities out of ignorance. It sounds from your post that you whole heartedly agree it is ignorance.

So, I definitely see a problem with it!

As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves".

Yes, but we can still castigate them for it.

> If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice.

You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well.

If the whole town goes up in a blaze, then will you expect the federal government to step in and help them? If yes, that means everyone foots the bill for their stupidity; If not, can we still call ourselves humans?

Some basic services should be funded, and if you don't want that, you should be able to go live in the woods, or at least that's how I see it.

> You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well.

While I despise your position, I admire your honesty about the fact that these policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on?

> What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on?

I don't know who is qualified to be that person, but somebody has to if you want to avoid tyranny-of-the-majority. "You can do any goddamn thing you want as long as you can convince 51 voters out of 100 to back you" is not sustainable. (See e.g. unpunished lynchings in the post-Civil War South.)

It might not be sustainable in your opinion, but it is literally what democracy is. Do you support democracy or not?

The person deciding is ostensibly the person elected to do the deciding.

> these policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

Like I said, if you don't like living in a society where the rules aren't to your liking, you can go live by yourself in the woods where there's no one to violate your consent.

What if the majority of voters in that society vote for "I got mine" policies? That's what we're arguing here; this isn't a situation about a handful of malcontents.

I think that is the point - some of these people do live in the woods.

Also, they might have a volunteer fire department. Or perhaps none, and they are fine with that. I am too as long as they are comfortable with their choices when things go wrong.

as long as they are comfortable with their choices when things go wrong

Right, yet it seems like that often isn't the case. See hurricanes & NFIP/FEMA, see wildfires & the USFS.

In each case, with residents who just want to do their own thing and ignore things like building codes & defensible space.

> I am too as long as they are comfortable with their choices when things go wrong.

People that make these choices don't necessarily stop to calculate all the risks they are subjecting themselves to, and instead only think that at the end of the year they'll have more money in their pockets. Essentially, they're comparing the possibility of something really bad happening (which most people avoid thinking about) with the guarantee of having more money - a relatively easy choice for most.

I think any developed state should put a priority on protecting its citizens, even from their own greed or ignorance. The state needs these people to be safe and healthy so that they can work, pay taxes, and create offspring to continue the cycle. In order to ensure that works, some basic services need to be provided.

People that have had their house burn down won't be making more offspring any time soon due to financial risk; people that are unhealthy can't work and end up costing the state money on treatments; crime lowers the property value of an area, making it less attractive to businesses or people looking for a place to move to, and so on.

>I think any developed state should put a priority on protecting its citizens, even from their own greed or ignorance.

You're literally arguing against democracy here. If the citizens are greedy and ignorant and vote for policies that reflect that, then if you support democracy you must support giving them those policies. Otherwise, you're arguing for authoritarianism.

> they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well.

Ironically, Grant's Pass in this very region has privatized fire departments, three of them, and homeowners put a sign by their mailbox indicating which FD serves them (or none)..

Actually, not three. Because, well, people saw an opportunity to get rich, and this was the result:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhD_5T4F7aw

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaG6fYBKXg8

You might notice some 60s and 70s era fire engines in these videos.

Realize that this private Fire Department only came into existence in the mid 2000s.

It has since been shut down by the State Fire Marshal.

I'm imagining my neighbors on either side having no fire protection and while they're properties are allowed to blaze, mine is sitting there in the middle. Sure would be nice if the fire department could have stopped the fire sooner....

Actually, in some places where certain residents don't pay for fire services, the fire department will come out anyway and watch their house burn, while making sure that the fire doesn't spread to their neighbors' (who did pay) houses. This happens in places like Arizona where "county islands" exist, where a few people refused to allow their property to be annexed into a municipality, so those people don't get any protection from the fire department.

> If they want to go without, that's their choice

and then later

> I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things

So they get to choose to go without paying taxes for local policing but we need to tax everyone to police them? Seems like we're only letting them choose if they want to pay into the keep everybody safe fund. They're going to get the service regardless of which way they vote.

What about the minority of residents that didn't vote for that government. What about the children?

Do you support seizing children from their poorly-voting parents and placing them in better (or foster) homes?

You appear to have inferred a moral conclusion that wasn’t in the post as I read it.

That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later.

See the soybean situation.

It’s hypocrisy and in a social system such as ours, they’re not as strictly isolated as the corporate and state propaganda they consume lead them to believe.

>That said, there is a history of rural areas cutting off their nose to spite their face then taking a bailout later.

This is why I think these rural voters should be forced to pay for their bailouts, even if it means seizing their property and evicting them into homelessness. They voted for these stupid policies, so they should be forced to live with the consequences of their votes.

" I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments."

You know that won't happen, and the rest of the taxpayers are going to end up subsidizing them.

I know, and that's what I don't agree with at all. They're getting to benefit in the short-term from their poor, selfish choices, and then getting the insurance of getting bailed out later when the SHTF. It's just like the auto industry bailouts; those companies should never have been bailed out, they should have been broken up and sold off for pennies on the dollar to better-managed foreign companies instead of being bailed out by taxpayers for the benefit of executives and maybe the employees.

I grew up on generational property in rural Oregon (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true), and it's true that there's plenty of anti-tax sentiment, including from myself.

Grants pass town (Josephine county) is generally a bad place to be, with lots of bad drugs and crime. But the country nearby has really scenic lakes and mountains, and is a good place to live if you have property. It's about an hour drive to anything better (Jackson county), so it's somewhat isolated.

It looks like the county wanted to levy property tax from $0.58 per $1000 of value, to $2.57 per, which was their plan to fund the sheriff Dept., DA, and juvenile detention. The people fought back and won. [0]

A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food.

It's hard to expect people who want to live small lives to pay for other people to have bigger lives, especially when the gap is large. Oregon isn't too bad of an example, but I was living in Illinois recently, and I saw the same situation there but much more drastically imposed. Chicago is obsessed with huge funding and high taxes, and the rest of the state is being dragged along unwillingly with an entirely different view. Unfortunately Chicago is about the only interesting thing in Illinois, so you can imagine which side gets votes.

[0] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_...

> (near Josephine county. OP says that it's in central Oregon, which isn't even remotely true),

References to geography in Oregon are funny. Portlanders always refer to Bend (for example) as "Eastern Oregon" even though it is the center of the state. Actually, it's to the west-center if anything. Wallowa, Union, Baker counties might as well be the other side of the planet. ;-D

I don't think I've ever heard someone call Bend Eastern Oregon. That's just ignorance

The dividing line is the Cascade Mountains. If you've ever seen both sides of those mountains in Oregon or Washington, you know why: very different climates.

Nothing new there. Colombus, OH is in the "Midwest", despite being nearly in line with the Jacksonville Atlantic coastline.

After living in Michigan for a while, I've learned that just because you use EST does not mean you're I'm the East coast.

It's hard to expect people who want to live small lives to pay for other people to have bigger lives

This is a beautiful short talking-point answer that glosses over a lot of awful.

The track record of American political movements dedicated to the principle you've articulated above is... appalling. Not even as a matter of subjective taste; as a matter of demonstrable historical record. The shocking state of rural Appalachia, which launched the "War on Poverty", was the result of generation after generation of people who voted to "live small lives" and "just "live their private country lives", and forgot that they weren't just making that choice for themselves as individuals -- they were also forcing that choice on their neighbors and their children, who got trapped in the resulting cycle of poverty.

I am perfectly comfortable telling you that you should not be allowed to vote your neighbors and children into that situation, and that they should have the right to interfere with your attempt to do so.

Not to mention that as soon as something happens that hurts their small lives...they want other people to pay to fix it.

If you look at the rhetoric of the "State of Jefferson" proponents it's clear that they believe simply clear-cutting the remaining forests will fund their society.

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein

It seems to me that believing in democracy also requires in believing in democratic outcomes even when they are not your own personal preferences or opinions.

Not everyone wants to be forced to buy more things from the government.

Your parent never advocated forcing anything. Democracy doesn't mean we have to like, agree with, or approve of what others do with their communities.

The Heinlein quoter is suggesting that taxation is theft, and it's immoral to force someone to pay for a public service if they personally don't want to.

I love this philosophy. If I don't want to have kids why should I have to pay for schools!

Carefully ignoring their own education, their desire to live in a functional society, their care and keeping when they get old etc.

That quote is peachy and all, but do understand that that attitude is exactly why America has awful education and healthcare systems, right?

I plan to go child-free, but I still vote for tax increases to fund my local schools, because I care about children in general, not just the ones related to me.

The reason America has awful education and healthcare is not due to lack of taxes. It's due to government mismanagement.

What government do you mean? My understanding is that schools are managed by local boards. You can't get farther from the "government" and closer to people than that.

> My understanding is that schools are managed by local boards.

The local boards often do not have the power to:

(1) Raise revenue that would fund much independently of outside funding,

(2) Freely control how much of funding they do have is spent, because the outside funding sources or superior (e.g., state) law independent of funding sets narrow parameters for many of their decisions.

For every where I've lived (granted, 4 districts all in California), neither of those were the case.

Districts can raise tens or hundreds of millions of dollars via bonds (requires voter approval but usually passes). They can also pass parcel taxes, which aren't subject to Prop 13 although they can be regressive. Most of their money does still come from the state, but IMO that's not a bad thing, since keeping it more local raises issues with income inequality.

There's very few limits on how they spend their money. I think the only caveat is that districts get extra amounts of ADA money based on the attendance of certain categories of students (e.g. ones that are still learning English). They're supposed to spend that money on relevant programs, and the county has to certify that the spending on those programs lines up with the amount of extra money that is being received.

I don't know of any government that's not mismanaged. Some are just worse than others.

Singapore?

The same can be said of private industry. True in my experience.

Thank you for saying what I was thinking. Anyone who has worked in a multi-billion dollar corporation has experienced mismanagement. I think it has to do with organizations that get beyond a certain size.

I think it's just the human condition.

Or any individual firm.

You get functional systems through competition, having many choices so that even if one (or 90%) of them are crap, you can go to the one which isn't. There is by definition no competition at any level of government, which is why so many government-managed services are crap. There is also little competition with most big businesses, which is why big businesses are crap. There is plenty of competition among small businesses, which is why you can go to most walkable downtowns and pick a restaurant and it'll be pretty good, or visit most AirBnB hosts and have a decent stay, or look for a favorite YouTube channel and find one that's interesting.

The department of education and no child left behind are two federal disasters that have wreaked havoc on public education.

On average, school funding in the US breaks down to about 45% from local, 45% state, and 10% Federal.

Couldn't a state, or a district in a state, opt out of Federal funding and then be free from those Federal programs and policies?

Yes, they would lose 10% of funding, but if Federal policies are the reason our schools spend way more per student with worse results than other OECD countries, then getting out from those policies should let them massively improve even with the reduced budget.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2016/04/18/474256366/why-americas-school...

No, it's due to the fact every school gets the majority of its funding from local property taxes, and America has 200 years of experience packing all the poor people and minorities into districts that white elites don't contribute to.

There is an aversion to investing in society at large because it benefits the poor and black. Even if that investment pays off double, triple, sextuple times what is put in[1]. People value white supremacy higher than even their own safety net[2].

1. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/12/12/504867570/how-inv...

2. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americans-welfare-perce...

It's almost as if the government mismanaged this whole affair.

You can keep pushing that view, but it is too narrow to be of use whatsoever.

The government here is structured to make public schooling answerable to local concerns and funded by local taxes. It's the barest minimum government you can apply.

Private schooling only amplifies the issues with this system. It has all the same problems, along with not needing to be transparent or accountable to the public.

It isn't too narrow, it's the exact problem. The US has failed to protect the people, it has failed to protect our planet, and it has failed to protect anybody but the rich. The US government is fundamentally flawed.

> The US government is fundamentally flawed.

I think part of this stems from how much power the states have, to be honest. There's no overarching system of, say, education that can really be used to hold States accountable for what they teach and appropriation of funds and such. Sure, they're bound by some regulations if they accept federal funding, but it's nowhere near enough. They can choose willy-nilly to just change it up, by stopping the federal funding...which is often a decision made on politics rather than what's good for the kids.

Not to mention that American secondary schools are going through an identity crisis, as I see it.

Flawed unless you are one of the rich you mention. I think things work rather well for a few and rather terrible for many, the question is how much longer things will keep working so well for the few?

FWIW, America has some of the best healthcare in the world. It just sadly also happens to be the most expensive.

There's something really interesting here. Consider what you just said and then go check this [1] out. Those are data from the OECD for expenditures on education per capita. We spend more than nearly anywhere else in the world on education. You might be thinking 'well that's because university costs so much' but those data show the breakdown in costs by various filters such as primary or secondary. And you'll see there too we spend more than nearly anywhere. For all combined education outside university we're 5th in the world.

The public/private spending tables are not so useful because they measure based on GDP, which leads to bizarre results like South Africa and Costa Rica being top of the world in education, but you can convert it into usable data. For instance we see that we spend 3.2% of our GDP publicly on all education outside of university, and we spend 0.31% of it privately. So we can combine those two to tell us that 3.2 / (3.2 + 0.31) = 91% of all spending on education outside of university is publicly funded. Since we spend $12,424 per student per year on this education group, we can then say that we publicly spend $11,327 of public funds per student per year. Now going back to our education table we can see that this means we are ranked 8th in the world by spending even if we only compare out public spending to every other country's public+private spending.

The point of this is that we spend alot on education. Yet as you yourself have said, we have quite an awful education system. By contrast you'll find many countries spending a tiny fraction of what we do, even parity adjusted, and excelling. For instance here are the PISA results, which provide a means of comparing educational performance between nations. [2] We definitely have a major problem with education, but I think there is no evidence that more money is anything like a solution.

If you genuinely care about children in general, then I think a far more productive idea would be to do something like join the Big Brothers and Big Sister's Program from United Way, and get to play a positive role in the life of disadvantaged youth. That program works, is fun, and you'll spend way less than you would just asking the government to take more money from you and others, and you can actually make a very positive change in somebody's life.

[1] - https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

[2] - https://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-ma...

As a teacher, I see two major problems with education in the States.

1) It's so inconsistent across states. Like, some required a masters to teach, some don't. Some require you to have Algebra 2 to graduate, some don't. etc. etc.

2) Our schools are going through an identity crisis, are are trying to be everything to everyone. The schools are trying to prep students for college, while also trying to make them career ready. We haven't struck a balance, and instead are trying to do both for all students, instead of setting one of them on a vocational track. Yes, some schools are good at that, but then those vocational students still often have the same graduation requirements as those who are planning on going to college; or they only have slightly lowered ones (at the school I teach at, the difference is chemistry and 2 years of a foreign language).

It's an issue that can only be resolved, in my opinion, by basically creating two types of schools, and separating the students at, say, age 15 or 16. And, of course, allowing them to change if they show the desire (and ability) to later.

They can do that. But I’m not paying for them either. Pull federal funding for their police and libraries. No LSTA for Oregon.

> “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” —Heinlein

'No Man is an Island' - John Donne

It turns out that writing good books doesn't make one a font of wisdom in all regards.

First there isn't necessarily much difference between the government or cronies seizing the sources of wealth eg oil and spending it before it touches citizens hands and seizing a portion thereof after it comes into citizens hands. In either case it siphoning off a percentage of the productivity of the nation and spending it hopefully for the common good. Even passing regulations are laws can be seen as tilting the field in favor of one or the other. Effectively taking the money for example of the power plant operator and making them buy equipment they don't want to sanitize the air the rest of us have to breath.

The tyranny you are decrying is a function of every functional nation in history. Economics it turns out is a poor tool by itself to manage the public good because consumer attention is finite, information imperfect, and circumstances complex. How precisely do you vote with your dollars now to keep the power plant operators from collectively poisoning you.

Well you vote for people who promise to write regulations with the help of scientists to avoid poisoning the planet and blackening your lungs because this solution has proved at least semi functional.

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