Thoughts on the Pennsylvania slot machine bill

I've been off the air while taking the Illinois bar exam, so I have a lot to catch up on now that I'm back.  First, I think the PA slot machine thing is very significant.  It is a great example of the gap between what state and local government are providing and what taxpayers are willing to pay for.  The fact is that probably 25% of what state and local governments do, the middle class suburban taxpayer--the people paying the bills for goverment--would cut in a heartbeat.  People want basic services at low cost, nothing more.  Politicians want to deliver all sorts of stuff--goodies to their cronies, payoffs to organized interests that support their campaigns, social welfare services, life sentences for stealing cookies with two prior felonies,  massive new government office buildings named after politicians, and on and on. 

I don't buy the Democratic party's mantra that we all really want all this stuff but just need to be educated into understanding that we have to pay more taxes for it.  Once upon a time, I did.  But the evidence is piling up that the contrary is true.  Most obviously,  most taxpayers don't want to pay for urban dysfunction any longer, and that's where a lot of the money is going.  For example, a ton of dough is going directly into the pockets of unionized public school teachers and administrators who are grotesquely overpaid, given how awful urban public schools are.   Take a look at the performance of the Philadelphia city school system, for example.

If PA (along with Illinois, and other states) has to resort to disguising taxation as gambling, it's time to cut services. 

How does this relate to HOAs and privatization?  Very directly.  Nobody likes taxes or assessments, but the HOA/special district model--paying fees for direct local services--probably has more support than paying general purpose state and local taxes.  The problem is that the HOAs are run so badly.  If they worked like they are supposed to, stopped the petty over-regulation, and confined themselves to providing good services at the lowest possible cost, they wouldn't have much opposition in principle because it's better than shoveling money down the governmental rat hole.  Exhibit A is California.  Sure, there's some anti-HOA sentiment.  But compare it to the rage at state government that swept Gray Davis out and the Governator in, and of course the property tax revolt of 1978-1983. 

I'm not talking about what's right and wrong here.  I'm talking about what people want and are willing to pay for, and how they want to pay for it.