The Republic has a big story this a.m. about how Tea Party folks, feeling their oats, are all upset about changes in the way garbage is collected in Fountain Hills.

The city is going with only one trash hauler for the town, and requiring residents to recycle.

The story goes on and on, letting the Tea Party folks have their say, but never details what the basis for the city action was.

I mean, I assume that Fountain Hills isn’t the first city to deal with this issue? What are the pros and cons of the debate?

Seems to me that one trash hauler rather than the current five would save the city money and might reduce the number of noisy trucks in a neighborhood by 80 percent, among other things.

And it would be nice to know if there were any federal or state requirements for cities in terms of recycling or if there were economic benefits to the city with it. (For example, by reducing the material in its landfill.)

The story tells us none of this.

The one thing we do know is that, with the Tea Party people involved, the debate got pretty dumb pretty quick.

Said one council person:

“"When ideology prevents rational discussion of a really pretty mundane topic, trash, there is no perspective Everything is suspect, which paralyzes us.”

What’s the Republic’s excuse?