Services Have to Be Paid For : Wednesday’s fires show vital importance of public safety funding

Something has got to give in state finances--indeed, as fires rage in Southern California, it is frighteningly possible that the something may be public safety.

The state budget accord, agreed to by Democrats and Republicans, shifts $2.6 billion from the counties and cities to education, and that transfer adds up to danger. This is why a bipartisan coalition of Californians--left and right, business and labor--supports Proposition 172; the measure would extend the half-cent sales tax, due to expire Jan. 1.

Consider where Southern California would have been Wednesday without firefighters and other public-safety personnel. “All we can do is juggle resources and hope we’re at the right place at the right time,” Ventura County Fire Chief George Lund told Times staff writer Mack Reed the day before, barely hiding his frustration as blazes spread.

Sacramento Fire Chief Gary Costamanga said last week: “Over the years when the budget had to be cut, it was the libraries, parks and general government that bore the brunt. They’ve already cut those to the bone in many cases. Now, it’s public safety that’s being impacted.”

Though some Californians continue to decry the depletion of local funds to solve the state’s budget problem, even some tax conservatives are turning into supporters of the sales tax extension. The real enemy of Proposition 172 is a dream-world ideology that pretends that a free society is a society that nobody has to pay for. There is no free lunch. There is also no free crime-fighting or free firefighting. And there is no way to bring about any semblance of government based upon the principle that only those who use public services need pay for them.

The Times supports not only Proposition 172, which would provide funds for public safety, but also Proposition 170, which would permit towns to vote to build their own schools by a simple majority. These measures are not government run amok. They are what stands between us and the anarchy of every man his own cop, his own firefighter, his own teacher. Advanced societies don’t work that way, and the sooner this society realizes it, the sooner it can halt its decline.