I live in a city I would consider fairly low-crime. The police hand out a lot of traffic tickets. My fellow citizens recently voted in a measure to hugely increase the police budget (in part for some of that shiny military equipment) while denying one to expand our small library. This seems like a pretty big waste of money to me, since the police don't add much to quality of life past a certain point while a library definitely does. Too many voters seem to act against their own interests too often these days.
