Bad news, Spectator fans. It turns out that “tax-averse” Colorado Springs’s budet shortfalls have served as a natural experiment, and the free market has been proved wrong.

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

..etc., etc. It lists more services that will be cut.

The only logical conclusion? Monica Potts:

…anti-tax acolytes never seem to comprehend that the things paid for by all of us together, through taxes, “include a bunch of stuff essential for a sound economy and any chance of achieving what is commonly thought of as the American way of life.