AMERICAN NOTES: Biting the Bullet

With times bad and getting worse, the administrators of Virginia's Arlington County proposed a bare-bones austerity budget for fiscal 1976. The trash-collection service would be curtailed and school expenditures slashed by $2 million. Transit fares would go up, and more parking meters would be installed. It was an unpalatable offering, so the budgeteers quite naturally began looking for a symbol to help sell the package to the public as well as to the county board, the body that must give final approval.

Right now, the biting-the-bullet emblem that resulted (see cut&) could well serve as the insigne for every...

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