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In reply to the discussion: The Seamy Underbelly Of Ferguson Starts To Appear (Updated) [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)This is going on in my mother's and sister's hometown. There are areas in which the residents have imposed extremely slow speed limits. If you exceed that slow limit, you get a ticket. The city makes money. A lot of people speed there. The city has other ways of making money: lots of young people in town so they issue lots of liquor licenses resulting in lots of drunk college-age kids. They have imposed an income tax on town residents and are enforcing it in an extreme way making people bring in records from some years ago. This is the struggle for tax revenue in municipal America.
George W. Bush was known for lowering state taxes in Texas and pushing the burden for taxing citizens onto the local governments. That means that poor towns and counties get poorer and poorer.