'When Citizens' Expectations Conflict with Budgetary Reality: Discontinuity between the Public's Demand for Services and its Willingness to Pay Taxes".

• Author: Metzgar, Judd
• Position: Review

Glaser, Mark A. and Denhardt, Robert B.

Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, Summer 1999, pp. 267-310.

The tension between citizens' demand for services and the willingness to pay for those services is a familiar dilemma for local government. This article explores the concept of tax-demand discontinuity, defined here as the difference between citizens' demand for services and their willingness to pay higher taxes to support those services. Based on a survey of more than 1,800 citizens in Orange County, Florida, this article develops a classification system that divides citizens' tax-demand discontinuity into seven different categories. Demographic profiles for household income, employment status, educational achievement, and age are then used to identify the characteristics of individuals within the established categories. This classification system is offered as a means of providing local government guidance in improving citizen-government relations, with particular emphasis on segments of the population that exhibit...