Cities Across America Facing Bankruptcy

J.J. Jackson | December 28, 2010 

Municipalities and cities from sea to shining sea are watching years of promises come back to bite them in the rear. Years of offering plush salaries to city workers and even elected officials who, without such bureaucratic posts, would not be able to support themselves in the real world as well as spending money on everything from new facilities to replace barely aged other ones (schools, libraries, etc.) while racking up and refinancing debt year after year are crippling governments to the point of bankruptcy.

This story from the New York Times highlights just a few of the cases.

Hamtramck, Michigan … enough funds to last until maybe March 1st? And Michigan denying them bankruptcy proceedings to clean up the mess.

Central Falls, Rhode Island … can no longer support itself.

Harrisburg, in my home Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, saddled with debt that has them in the hole millions of dollars.

Prichard, Alabama … cannot even send out checks any more to city workers who bought into the whole, work for the government and they’ll take care of you after you retire lie.

Cities across America; all going down the tubes at the hands of politicians who promised more than they should have and which are now seeing what happens when those promises grow too numerous and the economy slides a bit. CRASH! BANG! BOOM!

Back to the basics guys and gals:

Police
Fire
Roads
Emergency Services (street clearing in winter, etc.)
Schools (if you want to be a municipality that runs them)

Stop building new libraries because the old one isn’t quite big enough. Stop building new schools because the one built just 30 years ago isn’t the latest and greatest. Take care of your existing facilities because maintenance, done right, costs fractions of building new. Stop providing 10% full shuttle buses to take seniors to a quarter filled senior center every day. Tell land owners to trim back their own trees out of overhead power lines. Tell your employees no more extravagant pay and pension packages. If they don’t like it? Well there are other jobs they can go get. And, for the love of God, make your city council members unpaid elected positions so that they spend as little time as possible trying to screw up the lives of the people locally. Stop doing all the things you simply cannot afford to do!

You would be amazed at how quickly costs come into line when this becomes the normal course of business.

Copyright © 2006-2010
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at LibertyReborn.com (Digital Fingerprint: libertyreborn123456789)


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