Quote:
Originally Posted by michalik.piotr6837
Well, crime is legal in seattle and the police won’t come when you call them and if they did they won’t arrest b/c city will release and not prosecute b/c these poor people needed to steal your cat to get meth and it’s your fault that they are poor b/c you didn’t pay enough taxes to build them a tiny house and a safe injection site ...
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The city of Phoenix didn’t hire police officers for 6 years after the Great Recession of 2008. In 2018, the city budget allotted for 3,125 officers, but 3 years later that number is still not reached due to higher costs just to maintain current levels. Today, our police department has 3,000 officers, far short of 4,500 needed.
The cost of 3000 officers is 40% of the total Phoenix budget. Do you think voters are now willing to increase taxes 20% to pay for more police?
It’s not enough to pay for more officers. You have to also pay for more crime labs (fingerprint analysis, forensics, etc.), expand the courts, build more prisons and provide more probation and rehabilitation services to handle a much higher crime case load. The courts are back-logged many months. Arizona’s prisons are full to capacity. Are voters willing to increase taxes an additional 40-60% to pay for all these services over and above the costs to add police officers?
So, how much are you willing to pay in higher taxes for more police, lab services, courts, jails, probation and rehabilitation? What are the budget numbers for Seattle? Similar to Phoenix? Shall we vote yes for a 80% tax increase and see how far that will go?
