The board of a very small government agency--the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District--just passed a budget resulting in a $4-per-month water rate increase. Rate increases are so routine that most people do not even take note. They just write out the check and go back to work or to the TV set.
Always, the offhand dismissal to protesters is that this is only $4 a month, only a half-cent sales tax increase, just a mere $1 a year more on your auto registration fee, really nothing at all. Only a little mandate here, a small regulation there. In this way the Lilliputian threads bind the giant down.
