In the coming weeks, cities and counties throughout the region will find themselves in heated debates over how to deal with budget shortfalls. Do they raise taxes, cut services or both?

Few will find it as grinding as Miami-Dade County, which faces a $400 million gap. In his budget-proposal memo to county commissioners, Mayor Carlos Alvarez aptly states, ``It is time for our community to make some perhaps difficult but essential choices about what kind of government it wants to have.''

I would have worded it a bit differently: It's time for our community to make some difficult choices about what kind of government it can afford to have.

Everyone wants the best, and, to their credit, our local government leaders are no different. At the behest of residents, they want to create a city that would be the envy of other metropolitan areas, offering a cornucopia of sophisticated arts programs, well-paid public servants, majestic parks, plentiful social services and world-class public facilities.

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's admirable. What's more, I don't envy our county leaders their position. Their options rarely include perfect choices, with every decision subject to intense criticism.

BEYOND OUR MEANS

But in the effort to create that government we want, we just may be making decisions that yield opposite results, driving up the cost of living here to the point where this has become a less desirable place to live.

As we glow in the glitz of the luxury condos that line our shores, it's easy to forget that ours is still a citizenry of mostly modest income. The government we want may not be the government we can afford. Everyone wants to drive a Ferrari, but none more so than those who can only afford a Chevy.

Living beyond our means has resulted in property taxes eating away at a greater share of homeowner income in Miami-Dade than in most other U.S. counties.

A study by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C., found that 4.6 percent of the median homeowner income in Miami-Dade goes toward property taxes. Compare that to rival metro areas such as Atlanta's Fulton County, at 3.1 percent, or Charlotte's Mecklenberg County, at 2.6 percent.

In Florida, by comparison, property taxes eat a mere 1.1 percent of the median income of homeowners in Walton County. In Monroe County, the figure is 4 percent.

Overall, the study, which used figures for property taxes paid by households of owner-occupied housing from 2005 to 2007, ranked Miami-Dade County's property taxes, relative to income, in the highest 15 percent of the 788 counties studied nationwide.

WEIGHING IMPORTANCE

Alvarez has proposed cutting services and keeping property taxes mostly flat. Now it's up to the county commissioners to decide which is more important, tax relief or services. Budget workshops are planned this month, and public hearings take place in September.

If history is any indication, it would be prudent to store more of that household income for next year's property taxes. The voices of those who stand to lose government funding traditionally drown those of apathetic taxpayers, even if the latter amount to greater numbers.

If that happens, the community would be well on its way to creating the ``kind of government it wants to have.''

I just hope we can afford it.