This is due to Republicans in Congress blocking an increase on the gas tax, currently at ~18 cents/gallon of gas since 1993.
> It's hard to say how well police work without comparing it to something else, but just based on the US prison population I would say that police don't work well.
I'm not a huge fan of police myself, but I believe this problem to be with laws enacted by legislative bodies. I believe you'll see less arrests as drug arrests drop due to decriminalization/legalization of recreational drugs across the US.
> Fire and maintenance services might work reasonably well, but I bet both are shockingly extremely expensive.
Citation? My property tax bill for my municipality (~75K people) shows public safety costing ~$48 million/year and highways and streets cost ~$14 million/year. I don't believe those costs to be out of line for the amount of people covered.
Is it, though? Only 60% - 65% of the gas tax is spent on roads and highways [1] [2]. Not to mention (possibly ultimately justified, but still relevant) drivers of extra cost like the Davis-Bacon Act.
[1] http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=20698 [2] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230381540...
Your demagoguery does not hold up to the fact that Democrats recently held a majority in both houses of congress.
Your argument fails to take into account that, due to the filibuster, legislation can be blocked by one party (with no support from the other party) so long as the opposing party doesn't have both a majority in the House and a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.
If it's not such a good idea then perhaps it was only done as a publicity stunt, and that would explain why it hasn't come up again.
I don't know that I care much one way or the other. But saying "Democrats haven't voted it down" is actually different than "Democrats have made it a priority"
But the Dems do get campaign contributions from Oil & Gas companies. Only at 20% of the rate of folks in the GOP but it's not as though it's a 99/1 split.
Maybe so, but that's not the point. I'm just challenging the claim that government (which includes Republicans) effectively performs those tasks.
A semi-rural department with three fire engines, ambulance, brush trucks, serving an area of 7,000 people and approximately ~1,000 calls a year does so with expenditure of ~$1M for those 7,000 residents.
What's the breakdown of your calls? Car accidents? Health problems?
Do they really though? Road infrastructure (especially bridges) is widely recognized to be really bad in the USA. It's hard to say how well police work without comparing it to something else, but just based on the US prison population I would say that police don't work well. Fire and maintenance services might work reasonably well, but I bet both are shockingly expensive.