This is from the September 24, 2003 program.
Alabama is facing its worst budget crisis since the great depression. When faced with a modest tax hike or the utter decimation of its state government, Alabama voters voted for the utter decimation of the government. This will result in the closing of 52 driver's examination sites, 2 Field offices, the creation of a 4 day work week for State Troopers, hundreds of employees and prosecutor's offices being laid off, and 5,000 - 6,000 inmates being released early (among other things).
As usual, I received all of this detailed information from
The Daily Show.
Alabama Tax Crisis (Small - 7 MB)
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Well as a former resident of the state of Alabama, and it is a state most people will never experience, there is alot more in common with California than this particular tax vote story reveals.
In particular, the mistrust of any central government is so high that they would rather have no central government and the limits and chaos resulting than to have some central authority tell them what to do much less to pay money to boot.
While we may laugh and ridicule the voters in Alabama, they are doing what they think is right and appropriate. I think they're fools and mentally afflicted on the whole but a fundamental issue shared with the recent election in California is the sense of disconnect between individual sacrifice and any common good resulting.
Yes religion extremism is mixed up in this for Alabama (an element inseparable from their conservatism/republicanism) but no more so than the sense of selfish outrage (and I don't mean in any perjorative sense either) over the state of affairs in Ca.
Laugh and joke about Alabama, and note the stereotyping you're indulging in too.
