I dont live in USA so I dont know. But here the ruling party is losing in local elections in town, so they cut the amount of taxes aplocated to muncipialities while at the same time they ask them to deal with more issues. So muncipialities are forced to degrade the quality of their services - since they dont have enough money. Then the ruling party claims that the local politicians cannot rule properly. What is just a lie. But this lie works.
I believe it is possible it is happening at some municipal levels but my question was more directed towards your statement
>employed by American conservatives ... to deprive the federal government of revenue
which appears to refer to federal level. The general trend of federal receipts have been fairly flat above 15% for decades (except during great recession circa 2009), and the spending slightly different rising a bit above and funded by debt and/or inflationary effects.
My takeaway is here the beast has not been starved, although the beast is spending more of our children's future incomes in the form of increasing debt.
