Instead of reinventing the wheel, and before I learn how to use the hyperlink properly, I am stuck simply referring you to Matt Bai's article in yesterday's New York Times magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/08/magazine/08GOVS.html. I will just quote him,

"The tax cut will choke off revenue to the federal government, which is precisely what conservatives want it to do. Their thinking is that the less money Washington has, the less it will waste. ....

"Unlike the president, who can run up deficits at will, governors are legally bound to pass balanced budgets. ....

"Instead, desperate governors are slashing the aid that flows from each state to the cities and towns where people actually live. And this is the hidden effect of the Bush tax agenda -- beyond the expanding deficits and favoritism toward the wealthy -- that a lot of taxpayers don't yet seem to grasp. If Bush and Congress cut taxes, and your governor doesn't raise them, then the buck ultimately stops with your mayor, who has to find ways to pay the police and firefighters, paint schools and pave roads. That'll mean higher property taxes or fees on services like garbage collection, or maybe the town will decide it's time to reassess the value of your house. Either way, you're likely to be paying someone else the money you no longer send to Washington....

"Given that Bush and three of his cabinet members were governors themselves, you would think they'd be deeply concerned about the crisis in the states. If they are, no one in the administration wants to talk about it ....

"Influential Republicans aren't merely indifferent to the crises facing governors; they are openly hostile. Conservatives like Moore and Grover Norquist, the strategist who talks often with Karl Rove, say it would be insane for Washington to help states that won't help themselves. What governors really need, they argue, is the spine to cut back sprawling government programs. Norquist says governors should kick more people off Medicaid, for instance. To ensure that only the truly needy qualify, he advises governors to say, '''We're not going to be doing hair transplants or sex-change operations and all the other things we've been doing.'...''

"This is not the ideological fringe talking. It is, in fact, the center of power in the Republican Party...

"Leaving the governors to deal with their own fiscal nightmares is part of a tough-love policy designed to make the states scale back the social programs that are making them destitute...."

OK, and then Bai says, as you would expect him to say:

"That's fine, except taxpayers, even those who vote for smaller government -- have come to demand a certain threshold of services."

And so the question is, who pays. For example, after September 11, President Bush promised 20 billion dollars in funding to New York City. Despite what you hear on Fox and what you read in the New York Post, New York City did not get 20 billion dollars. If it did, it was not "new funding" nor was it funding that went only to New York City, or even the New York Metropolitan area. Instead, I received a tax cut, and as Matt Bai says, I will be spending that tax cut paying for increases in my New York State and City taxes.

One sort of conservative, the conservative that liberals think they're dealing with, would say: "Well if you feel that way about raising taxes in New York, and you can get enough people to agree with you, then fine. Here in our state, we don't believe in taxes. We like our dirt roads." (A movement conservative, the conservative who holds power in this country, would say that providing government services to people is immoral, but we'll hold that as a marker for some other time.)

My initial reaction to my dirt road loving friend is this -- I'm fine with paying higher taxes in New York City, just so long as no one from Mississippi or Ubekistan (sic) puts their grubby paws on the services I get with my additional money.

The thing is that all those people will be moving to New York City the first chance they get.

There are a number of ways to keep all these "free riders" from doing that. One of those ways is to make sure that people are so happy where they are that they don't feel a great need to come to New York City. Which, by the way, is another (though not necessarily the best) "liberal" reason to like crushing Sadman Insane.