“I am sure they spend less per capita on police”
Conservatives sometimes forget that government can save lives.
That is not an intellectually honest point. The debate between conservatives and liberals does not concern spending for police, parks, highways, or electrcity grids. It concerns spending for food stamps, section 8, medicaid, obamacare, obamaphones (“I vote for obama because he gives us cell phones”), etc. It concerns the main purpose of the tax code which according to all tax academics is to redistribute wealth.
So don’t condescend us. Don’t lecture us about spending for roads and policemen.