Obama wants to flush $50 bil down the toilet.

[MKSheppard]

Link

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is pressing Congress to approve emergency aid money to support economic recovery and help avoid widespread layoffs of public workers, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Congressional leaders received a letter from the president asking for almost $50 billion for distribution to state and local governments, saying that increased spending is “urgent and unavoidable,” the Post reported. The money would protect the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters.

“Because the urgency is high—many school districts, cities and states are already being forced to make these layoffs,” Obama wrote, “these provisions must be passed as quickly as possible."

Jesus fuck. $50 billion could fund Constellation easily; send us to the moon, establish a base on BOTH the moon AND mars....and this moronic retrograde fucker we have for POTUS wants to spend it on Public Sector Unions (IOW, a huge bribe).

[Temujin]

Jesus Fucking Christ Shep. These are not only services essential to local communities in order to them keep functioning, these are also peoples lives. While I'm all for space exploration, this is a bit more important than your fantasies.

Maybe if we had focused on stable, sustainable economic development as opposed to unfettered capitalism, libertopian wet dreams of a completely deregulated society, and wasteful inefficient spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't be in this mess and would be able to have a working economy and a viable manned space program. Of course while both parties do share some of the blame as they're really two sides of the same coin, you and other conservatives will put all the blame on the democrats when the biggest and most numerous supporters of the aforementioned unfettered capitalism and deregulation are your precious Republicans.

[MKSheppard]

Jesus Fucking Christ Shep. These are not only services essential to local communities in order to them keep functioning, these are also peoples lives.

You leave out the fact that these communities ran up huge deficits and made very generous sweetheart deals with their public sector unions during the "good times" of the 2000s:

Link

A tale of two counties
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A16

MONTGOMERY COUNTY has just completed a nightmarish budget year. Stressed, squabbling and besieged elected officials savaged services and programs and jacked up taxes to eliminate an eye-popping deficit of almost $1 billion in a $4.3 billion spending plan. Meanwhile, across the Potomac River in Fairfax County, all was sweetness and light by comparison. With a budget roughly equal to Montgomery's, Fairfax officials erased a deficit a quarter as large with relative ease and far less drama.

The picture isn't likely to change anytime soon. Montgomery, having already pruned the low-, medium- and some high-hanging budgetary fruit, is facing annual deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars as far as the eye can see. Fairfax, though facing tough choices and further cuts in an economy clouded by recession, has a brighter future.

The region's two largest jurisdictions -- demographic cousins with populations around 1 million, school systems among the nation's biggest and best, and public spending equal to that of small countries -- have parted ways. To put it bluntly, Montgomery is lurching under the weight of irresponsible governance, unsustainable commitments and political spinelessness -- particularly in the face of politically powerful public employees unions.

Over the past few months, some readers have asked why we lately have devoted attention to those unions. The diverging paths of Montgomery and Fairfax provide one explanation. We respect the public employees in both counties and their dedication to public service. Clean parks, cheerful classrooms, safe streets, bustling libraries -- the work of these employees helps keep these counties such attractive places to live. But when 80 percent of all outlays are related to personnel, labor contracts that get out of whack can endanger the public welfare.

Take a snapshot of one year, 2006, when times were flush. In Fairfax, the county executive, an unelected technocrat, proposed a budget with a relatively robust spending increase of about 6 percent. In Montgomery, County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, a career politician then running in the Democratic primary for governor, pitched a gold-plated, pork-laden grab bag of political largess that drove county spending up by 11 percent.

Mr. Duncan's budget that year capped a three-year spree in which county spending rose by almost 30 percent. It reflected major multiyear increases in pay and benefits that he had negotiated for police, firefighters and other county workers. At the same time, Jerry D. Weast, Montgomery's schools superintendent, negotiated a contract that promised pay increases for most teachers of 26 to 29 percent over three years -- about twice the raise Fairfax teachers got -- plus health benefits virtually unmatched in the region. Montgomery County Council members, most of whom were hoping for union endorsements in the fall elections, rubber-stamped Mr. Duncan's contracts. The Board of Education, equally beholden to the teachers union, did the same for Mr. Weast.

The primary culprits here, as this account should make clear, are not the unions, which are supposed to represent their workers energetically, but county leaders. These include an inexperienced and now all-Democratic County Council, whose current members' average tenure, less than six years, is half that of the members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors; a politically agile schools superintendent who has rallied support by striking generous deals with the teachers union; and successive county executives who signed their own unaffordable contracts with police, firefighters and other public employees unions.

The results have been striking -- and strikingly unaffordable -- in a county where more than half of all spending goes to public schools. The average teacher salary in Montgomery today is $76,483, the highest in the region. Average pay for teachers is now almost 20 percent higher in Montgomery than in Fairfax and has increased much faster than in most local suburban school systems. Since 2000, salaries for Montgomery teachers, as for many other county employees, have nearly doubled, rising at almost triple the rate of inflation.

Teachers are pillars of any community, and Montgomery's are highly rated. But their compensation has outstripped the marketplace. Today, Montgomery schools spend about 20 percent more per pupil than Fairfax schools; they consume a greater share of the public spending than in any other locality in the region. The spending gap is not about classroom quality and student achievement; in those terms the two school systems are comparable. Rather, the difference is compensation, which accounts for 90 percent of Montgomery's education spending.

Virginia law denies public employees collective bargaining rights; that's helped Fairfax resist budget-busting wage and benefit demands. As revenue dipped two years ago, Fairfax officials froze all salaries for county government and school employees with little ado. By contrast, Montgomery leaders were badly equipped to cope with recession. County Executive Isiah Leggett took office proposing fat budgets and negotiating openhanded union deals after he succeeded Mr. Duncan. Then, as economic storm clouds gathered, he shifted gears and cut spending -- while still trying to appease the unions.

Notoriously, one such deal guaranteed almost $300 million in pension benefits over 40 years to thousands of employees based on salary increases they never received. The giveaway became known as "Phantom COLAs," for the cost-of-living raises that were never paid. And even when Montgomery's teachers agreed to give up cost-of-living raises last year, about two-thirds of them continued to receive step increases of up to 4 percent.

The cozy ties between elected officials and public employees unions in Montgomery have formed the backdrop for a drumbeat of reports about county employees' bountiful benefits, perks and abuses. In the past few years we've learned about county police officers who helped themselves to hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars to secure cut-rate weapons for personal use. More than half the officers who retired recently from the police force left claiming "severe disabilities," some of them dubious, entitling them to huge taxpayer-funded benefits for life. Veteran firefighters may retire at age 46 and continue working for three years while simultaneously accruing pension payments that increase at a taxpayer-guaranteed rate of 8.25 percent annually, regardless of market performance. Meanwhile, Montgomery's teachers union has wielded such outsized electoral clout that politicians who received the teachers' endorsement in the most recent elections reached into their pockets and wrote checks to the union. As far as we know, this occurs nowhere else in America.

Some of Montgomery's problem is also structural. It has relied for more than a quarter of its revenue on a local income tax, an option available to localities in Maryland but not in Virginia. The income tax is volatile: In good times it yielded windfalls for Montgomery -- and no-holds-barred spending sprees -- but in the current downturn it has meant a cruel collapse in revenue. Over the past two years, Montgomery's take from the income tax has plummeted by $400 million -- by itself the equivalent of 10 percent of all county revenue.

The recession has had a bracing effect on Montgomery's elected officials, some of whom now express contrition about their spendthrift ways and deference to unions. This year council members, along with Mr. Leggett, by necessity turned into cost-cutters. A year ago, just one council member, Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), voted against the phantom COLAs; this month Mr. Andrews was able to muster a unanimous vote on the council to overturn them. Even Mr. Leggett, who negotiated the phantom COLAs, endorsed the council's action to scrap them -- a rare instance of government repealing an entitlement.

Contrition is fine as long as it's accompanied by concrete steps to reform. The county has just about run out of revenue-raising options, having boosted nearly its entire menu of taxes to the legal or practical limit. Montgomery's higher taxes already put it at a competitive disadvantage with Fairfax, which has a wide lead in attracting business and creating high-wage jobs; now Montgomery risks a downward spiral. To avoid that, a cultural shift must take place. Some helpful measures would include:

-- Candidates for council and school board in Montgomery should foreswear all donations to or from public employees unions. This is a minimum necessary step to sever the cozy ties that have indebted officeholders to the employees they are supposed to oversee and whose compensation forms a critical aspect of the county's fiscal integrity.

-- Candidates for public office, who are routinely asked to fill out questionnaires from public employees unions and other special interests in election years, should refuse to answer any question that would commit them to undefined future spending.

-- The county should beef up its rainy-day reserve funds as a means to protect against future downturns, provide an incentive to fiscal restraint and safeguard the county's shaky AAA bond rating.

Nancy Floreen (D-At Large), president of the County Council, has asked the county staff to prepare options for shrinking future deficits. County officials will encounter inevitable pushback from unions and other interests warning that more cost-cutting will have dire consequences. They may find that their best counter-arguments are close at hand, just across the river.

[Coyote]

It's true. Idaho has a state constitution that forces a balanced budget. Our budget shortfall the last year meant that a lot of agencies were downsized to the point of irrelevancy or near non-existence. The state commission on human rights was actually in the process of being axed when public outcry forced the embarrassed pols to rethink their position; now it has been cut back to a handful of people sharing office space with another agency that has been slashed.

However--

Our illustrious governor (where's the power-vomit smiley when I need him?) has decided that it is in the state's interest to blow a wad of money on a Quixotic legal challenge for our state to opt-out of the health care bill (because legal stuff is cheap, huh?) and in a massive public relations campaign to get Idaho to be one of the first bases to receive the F-35 fighter-- ideally for both our active-duty air base at Mountain Home and for out Air National Guard; but if not both at least one of them. This is in the idea that it will "create jobs". High-tech jobs. In other words, jobs the local employment market cannot sustain because our state also does everything it can to slash education so most of the graduates in the area are only suitable for worker-drone status.

Fucking one-party crypto-Libertarian GOP jerkoffs.

So, no, logically I understand the need to keep the public sector jobs but there's also a part of me that says these people just waste the money on dalliances and if they funded Constellation at least we'd see something for it.

[MKSheppard]

It's true. Idaho has a state constitution that forces a balanced budget.

About 99% of all state constitutions IIRC have that. Because at the state level; they can't basically float debt bonds on the level of the fedgov. So they have to make sure the budget's balanced.

This also runs smack into the power of the public sector unions, who are very powerful at the local level of government in the US -- as the Editorial I posted -- it's from the WASHINGTON FREAKING POST of all places -- shows; politicians are very loath to take on the Teacher's Union, Fireman's Union, Police Union, etc; because if they do -- then the unions get out in the streets and mobilize; and you get bad press:

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
THINK OF OUR CLEAN CRIME FREE STREETS
THINK OF OUR CLEAN NON BURNING DOWN COMMUNITIES!

At a local level; where turnout is virtually zero -- I don't even know who my local councilmember is -- that kind of agitation can win or lose elections. So politicans suck up to the Unions and give them increasingly large freebies, until a point is reached where the freebies are unsustainable.

I think the thinking goes that the politicans hope to be out of office when the music stops and everyone rushes for the chairs...

EDIT: This is what's happening all over the US. The music has stopped; and people have already filled up the chairs. So someone's gonna have to get screwed. And the Unions have decided that if anyone's going to be screwed -- it won't be them. And they did play a very large part in organization and agitation that got Obama elected on the local level. So this is basically a very large IOU being called in by the Unions towards Obama.

[Temujin]

I'm sorry, but in situations like this you still have to focus on essential services even if the local unions and local politicians are the ones who helped screw the pooch in the first place. You don't get off saying "sucks to be you" and "fuck'em, I got mine". That's not how a properly functioning society works. If that's what you believe, why don't go move to Somalia, I hear its nice this time of year.

Of course if it was your house on fire, or you were the victim of a crime and couldn't get assistance we all know it would be a different story. The quote by Olbermann in my Sig. sums up your attitude best.

[Knife]

Indeed. While cool shiny toys would be nice, people are fucking teetering on the edge. Some have weathered this recession badly, others like champs, but after two fucking years, losing more jobs and more emergency services at the State level is unconscionable.

[MKSheppard]

I'm sorry, but in situations like this you still have to focus on essential services even if the local unions and local politicians are the ones who helped screw the pooch in the first place. You don't get off saying "sucks to be you" and "fuck'em, I got mine".

Except these essential services aren't being closed down -- there's a big difference between going from say 800 officers on the rolls to 700~ versus going to zero. Budget cuts don't instantly mean that the police or fire department becomes completely ineffective overnight.

In anycase; all of what I said above won't make a difference to you -- you're probably like my brother -- he said to me, and I quote:

"If there wasn't a Police Union, nobody would want to be a policeman."

That line had me completely speechless; to the point I didn't even bother to reply to him.

[lazerus]

"If there wasn't a Police Union, nobody would want to be a policeman."

That line had me completely speechless; to the point I didn't even bother to reply to him.

The article itself says that the union's arn't the problem -- a union is supposed to vigorously fight for the betterment of those within it. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that the key word in that sentence is "fight" -- it's supposed to be an antagonistic or at least opposed relationship between the union and the people with the money. Not a cozy one.

[Starglider]

This is rewarding failure, just like most of the banking bailouts. The message is clearly 'it's ok to promise ridiculous benefits and run massive deficits, the federal government will bail you out'. The local governments that managed to keep spending down get nothing for their prudence, the idiots who overspent get off scott free (in fact they probably look like heroes for getting free money out of the Feds). It is another step down the path to 200% national debt and ultimately hyperinflation.

[Jalinth]

Unfortunately the balanced budget requirements in many states now resembles a game of kick the can. Do some short term fixes/gimmicks that just kick the problem into the budget for the next few years and either pray or get a new job before the problem reappears. Many states are facing structural deficits rather than merely cyclical deficits - so they need to either increase revenue, cut spending, or both. California is one example, but Arizona is another. Doing a sale-leaseback of your government buildings to cover a few months of spending? Absolutely nuts and any state politician who voted for that and calls themselves a fiscal conservative should be tarred and feathered.

A significant problem in the US relates to the defined benefit plans - they are often using a high long-run return assumption and otherwise are expensive in a long run sense. Calpers is using a 7.75% rate of return - pretty rich given the current conditions. A Stanford study has a 60% chance of Calpers having a $250 billion US deficit in 16 years. This for a state projecting revenues of only $89 billion in 2012. Here is the study http://siepr.stanford.edu/system/files/ ... oke_pb.pdf and year is Stanford's response to Calpers criticism http://siepr.stanford.edu/system/files/ ... CalPER.pdf

[Coyote]

I'm sorry, but in situations like this you still have to focus on essential services even if the local unions and local politicians are the ones who helped screw the pooch in the first place. You don't get off saying "sucks to be you" and "fuck'em, I got mine". That's not how a properly functioning society works...

That's the problem I'm trying to address-- the teachers, firefighters, and police would not be in a fix if our stupid state and local "leaders" hadn't blown money on bullshit boutique items that propped up their egos.

So next year, what happens? They blow state budgets on bullshit and let the necessary public institutions wither, because they know the Feds will bail them out-- it's fucking extortion, really. Who's going to let these needed public sector jobs go? Unemployment and a loss of essential services.

[Temujin]

This is rewarding failure, just like most of the banking bailouts. The message is clearly 'it's ok to promise ridiculous benefits and run massive deficits, the federal government will bail you out'. The local governments that managed to keep spending down get nothing for their prudence, the idiots who overspent get off scott free (in fact they probably look like heroes for getting free money out of the Feds). It is another step down the path to 200% national debt and ultimately hyperinflation.

I don't like rewarding failure either; but here, as with the bank bail outs, its the lesser of two evils.

With the banks we either could bail them out, or let them fail and the let the economy tank even further. Here we either prop up the local governments or let them fall on to even harder times in an already shitty economy.

Ideally, as with the banks, this should be used as a temporary measure to prop them up while real reform is implemented. Especially if the terms of the relief are tied to real measures of improvement and reform. Sadly this not only wasn't done with the banks, but all subsequent attempts at meaningful reform are being watered down at best, and completely shot down at worst.

Unfortunately, the same problem is going to happen here; and Obama doesn't have the fucking stones to really get down and force these fuckers into any kind of agreement. So much for the Chicago Way.

[MKSheppard]

Here we either prop up the local governments or let them fall on to even harder times in an already shitty economy.

Heh. The local governments won't collapse -- if they take the necessary measures to set their houses in order, and that means getting down to the crux of the matter, unsustainable unionized worker pay and pensions.

Unfortunately, the same problem is going to happen here; and Obama doesn't have the fucking stones to really get down and force these fuckers into any kind of agreement. So much for the Chicago Way.

Teh Chicago Way only works in a one-party state controlled by King Daley. Outside of Chicago....it does not work so well.

[Coyote]

To be honest, state-level Rethugs have Obama over a barrel. After all, they spend money on high-profile/low-gain stuff to either score pork (pitching for the F-35 while letting institutions founder) or pander to voter ideology (the legal challenge to health care)-- and if the White House and Dem-led Congress don't ride to the rescue, what happens? Jobs are lost as local leaders wring their hands and say "I can't do anything, I asked for help and the Dems said 'no'!" Then, in November they get to pitch the Dems and Obama as 'the people that bailed out Wall Street but ignored Main Street' ( ).

The Democrats can't even do much to fight back-- they're on the hook if public services fall; but when the dust settles the local leaders will say "I scored a bailout for my voters back home, yay me" while also tarring the Democrats as "big government spenders". It's total Catch-22.

[Illuminatus Primus]

"Public sector unions" is just code for promoting intra-class warfare between the private workers who have been bled white by the U.S. already-anemic and progressively declining since Saint Ronald Reagan the Great's (Peace be upon Him) term social security and public services. Working and middle class Americans have been squeezed for three decades, and progressively relied more and more on debt and two-parent-breadwinner family schemes in order to make up the difference (and buy stupid shit the advertising industry brainwashes into people as "needs"). I never see any evidence ever trotted out in order substantiate the claim that public employees, or unionized employees more generally, keep getting higher and higher benefits and pay, relative to inflation (maybe relative to private or ununionized workers, but that's because management can shit on them at will). Because unions allow workers to pose a greater collective response to management, which atomized individual workers cannot provide, they are obvious the loathe of businessmen and intellectuals in the New Economy (tm) of individualistic "associates" and service industries, which uh, look nicer than steel mills, so uh, we don't need any institutions for labor. What Shep would have happen is exactly what all the left-liberal squealing was about in Colorado Springs. What do you think will happen if local government is given an endless ax to payrolls and budgets?

Labor attacks more generally is just Red-baiting by proxy. "Evil unions" forcing workers to do shit or some crap like that. We live in a country where Orwellian-termed "Right to Work" laws mean the right to be fired on any pretext (as my employer gleefully informed me). And then there's this left-liberal hand-wringing about what a "pussy" Democrats and Obama are. What a crock. How long are you guys going to cling to this absurd quasi-Freudian nonsense about the psychology of individual politicians and their organizations? Think in terms of institutions and organizations; the Democrats used to be vibrant when there were workers' organization and such, without institutions for the public to provide a counterweight to business, they will set the agenda and the Democrats and Republicans just represent tactical differences in responses to that agenda. Business has waged a war against unions, and labor standards for decades, and is winning, and left-liberals are often apparently the first to run-up to the fore and scream bloody-murder about unions. Look at health care, all the squealing over single-payer, and how did Canada get it? It was pushed on the provincial government by unions.

[MKSheppard]

To be honest, state-level Rethugs have Obama over a barrel.

Actually, Idaho seems to be in good shape. Because the state is so virulently anti-union -- I looked up unionization numbers and they were pretty impressively low -- even in government -- they were able to push through a 3.7% across the board spending cut on education funding and looked at reductions in Medicaid (!!) -- which has apparently turned Idaho budget issues from a "oh god we're in the hole for $170~ million" to "okay, we're only $50 million in the hole, this is doable".

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ah yes, Idaho, a fine model for the rest of the nation, with its 386,000-man population, no major industries or large businesses or cities, and known for its sterling public universities (alum includes Sarah Palin). Major political issues include hunters' permits for shooting wolves. Yeehaw.

[MKSheppard]

*snip random whining by IP*

I bet you didn't even read that editorial I posted earlier by the WaPo? It points out how public sector unions and their unsustainable demands have driven my home county of Mongomery into a deep, deep hole. Meanwhile, Fairfax County in Virginia -- which has a nearly demographically identical make up and population size -- is facing budget issues; but they are not the "commit suicide" variety; because unlike Maryland, it's against VA law for public sector workers to unionize.

And Fairfax schools perform just as competitively well as Montgomery schools, despite the huge disparity in teacher wages/pension.

At times; it does seem that Lonestar's constant pandering of Maryland as Crapland and boosterism of Virginia has some logic in reality.

[aerius]

Except these essential services aren't being closed down -- there's a big difference between going from say 800 officers on the rolls to 700~ versus going to zero. Budget cuts don't instantly mean that the police or fire department becomes completely ineffective overnight.

No kidding, when the pension system's getting scammed for a few TRILLION, you got much bigger problems. Rework the pension plans and you won't even have to do any layoffs. Seriously, look at this shit.

NYT link
Excerpts:

In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.

It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. “I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem,” he said.

Despite a pension investigation by the New York attorney general, an audit concluding that some police officers in the city broke overtime rules to increase their payouts and the mayor’s statements that future pensions should be based on regular pay, not overtime, these practices persist in Yonkers.

The city has even arranged for its police to put in overtime as flagmen on Consolidated Edison construction sites. Though a company is paying the bill, the city is actually reporting the work as city overtime to the New York State pension fund, padding future payouts — an arrangement at odds with the spirit of public employment, if not the law.

A spokesman for the New York State comptroller’s office said that the city was in error and pointed to a 1986 decision by the Supreme Court of New York that found that hours worked by police for outside businesses could not be included in their state-paid pensions.

In fact, the cost of public pensions has been systemically underestimated nationwide for more than two decades, say some analysts. By these estimates, state and local officials have promised $5 trillion worth of benefits while thinking they were committing taxpayers to roughly half that amount.

This year, to save money, the city is proposing to eliminate about 90 police jobs, out of 640. The savings, though, will not even cover the extra cost of the overtime-enriched pensions. Meanwhile, the police say the layoffs will make the situation worse, because shrinking the police force means those who remain must work even more overtime, driving up pension costs even more.

And let's not forget double-dipping

But New York State found a way around it. In 1997, lawmakers created a safe-harbor mechanism allowing retirees to collect bigger pensions legally — a second pool of money called the Excess Benefit Fund. Towns all over the state pay the associated costs, even though only a few of them have retirees who qualify. At least 28 recipients in New York get pensions above $195,000 a year. One of the highest is George M. Philip, who gets $261,037 after retiring as chief executive and chief investment officer of the New York State teachers’ pension fund. Since retiring, he has gone back to work as president of the State University of New York at Albany, drawing an additional $280,000 last year.

[Temujin]

Here we either prop up the local governments or let them fall on to even harder times in an already shitty economy.

Heh. The local governments won't collapse -- if they take the necessary measures to set their houses in order, and that means getting down to the crux of the matter, unsustainable unionized worker pay and pensions.

Did I say the governments would collapse? No, but don't stop being a good little dishonest conservative and let little things like facts get in the way. The issue is the degree to which people will end up suffering, but there's no point arguing a concept like that with a selfish sociopath like yourself. Your no different than the libertopian idiots who whine about how the "Invisible Hand" of the market will correct itself, never mind how many people suffer, and to what degree, in the process.

Unfortunately, the same problem is going to happen here; and Obama doesn't have the fucking stones to really get down and force these fuckers into any kind of agreement. So much for the Chicago Way.

Teh Chicago Way only works in a one-party state controlled by King Daley. Outside of Chicago....it does not work so well.

Obama could still use a lot of his executive power to get some of the aforementioned things done. The problem is all he has is his rhetoric. A good example is BP and the whole 'boot on the throat' crap. It sound great for the press, but quickly rings quite hollow.

[Alphawolf55]

I say Congress should allow that any union that receives stimulus money is subject to automatic negotiation of contract terms to more sustainable levels.

[MKSheppard]

Did I say the governments would collapse? No, but don't stop being a good little dishonest conservative and let little things like facts get in the way.

There is the alternative though. They go bankrupt. And then the people with the pensions get totally fucked over.

Normally, when a company or individual goes bankrupt, assets can be sold off to raise money to pay the creditors. But with a local government bankruptcy (Vallejo, CA declared bankruptcy a bit ago); you can't sell off governmental assets to pay off the creditors -- because those assets are needed, like Police Cars or Ambulances...so the creditors (retired employees with pension plans guranteed by the local government) are SOL.

[aerius]

Did I say the governments would collapse? No, but don't stop being a good little dishonest conservative and let little things like facts get in the way.

There is the alternative though. They go bankrupt. And then the people with the pensions get totally fucked over.

Normally, when a company or individual goes bankrupt, assets can be sold off to raise money to pay the creditors. But with a local government bankruptcy (Vallejo, CA declared bankruptcy a bit ago); you can't sell off governmental assets to pay off the creditors -- because those assets are needed, like Police Cars or Ambulances...so the creditors (retired employees with pension plans guranteed by the local government) are SOL.

Don't worry Shep, they got that covered.

CNN link

California may bar city bankruptcies

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A bill that clamps down on municipal bankruptcy filings is headed for Gov. Schwarzenegger's desk, which is bad news for Los Angeles and other cash-strapped California cities.

It the governor signs Assembly Bill 155, it would place a hurdle in the path of filing for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. The bill stipulates that a city may only file for bankruptcy with the approval of the California Debt Investment Advisory Commission, which provides information on debt to public agencies.

"California's taxpayers who rely on public safety, senior, park and library services, as well as those who own and operate businesses in our communities, deserve every effort that state and local government can make to avoid the long-term devastation of bankruptcy," the bill says.

In particular, the bill says it intends to protect retirement pensions and health benefits for public employees, which would be disrupted and renegotiated in the wake of bankruptcy.

This could have a direct impact on the state's largest city, Los Angeles, which is facing a huge budget shortfall.

L.A. is projecting that city revenues will fall 11.2% short of projected expenses in the current fiscal year, which adds up to a deficit of $492 million, according to Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-profit research organization on public policy. The city had a shortfall of 12.1% the prior year.

The city's former mayor, Richard Riordan, is calling for bankruptcy as the current mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, is proposing deep cuts to city payrolls, according to news reports. Riordan and Villaraigosa were not immediately available for comment to CNNMoney.com.

Villaraigosa said in March that he would have to cut more than 3,000 city jobs, according to Pew. Instead, he agreed with the City Council to lay off between 761 and 1,761 positions - unless the unions accept pay cuts and unpaid furloughs.

The city of Vallejo, located north of San Francisco, already filed for bankruptcy in 2008. If Schwarzenegger approves the bill, it would impact the ability of other cities to file for Chapter 9.

Of course, California isn't the only state with cities in fiscal crisis. According to Pew, Chicago is faced with a projected budget shortfall of 16.3%, while Kansas City and Phoenix, each have shortfalls of 12.5%. New York City has a projected deficit of $4.9 billion, or 8.2% of expenses.

Municipalities will get banned from going bankrupt to guarantee the pension plans for public workers. Brilliant!

[Illuminatus Primus]

*snip random whining by IP*

I bet you didn't even read that editorial I posted earlier by the WaPo? It points out how public sector unions and their unsustainable demands have driven my home county of Mongomery into a deep, deep hole. Meanwhile, Fairfax County in Virginia -- which has a nearly demographically identical make up and population size -- is facing budget issues; but they are not the "commit suicide" variety; because unlike Maryland, it's against VA law for public sector workers to unionize.

And Fairfax schools perform just as competitively well as Montgomery schools, despite the huge disparity in teacher wages/pension.

At times; it does seem that Lonestar's constant pandering of Maryland as Crapland and boosterism of Virginia has some logic in reality.

Your "solution", in fact, would help accelerate to decline of middle and working classes, create even more unemployed benefit-sinks. In the long term, I imagine that the U.S. would continue to reflect the complete bifurcation in workers' organization compared to Europe, for which we have to thank anemic and declining social and public services, no health care, gigantic prison populations, burnt-out city cores, etc., etc. European elites aren't magically nicer than American ones, the public is more organized there and has been able to force more concessions. Not so much here.

Apparently (and this is to most of the board, not you Shep), left-liberals would expect me and everyone else to believe its just because some crazy fanatic 'tards have been doing our Master Social Planning (tm) that these things have happened. Solution: get more clever, Rachel Maddow liberal intellectual Master Planners. And of course, left-liberals can be trusted with power, because they're nice and politically correct.

Why did people turn to debt so much since Reagandom? Who giddily encourages and eagerly financializes that debt, knowing they're implicitly state-supported industries? Why do U.S. unions need to push for such benefits? Is it not because the U.S.'s wages relative to costs-of-living and inflation are stagnant, despite growth? Because we have no public services such as health care or decent public pensions? Because our taxes have been abysmally low for thirty years? Because maybe, we have no industries anymore? Who advised these evil city governments to take on debt and financialize? Perhaps the same people who created the crisis? In Florida, one six years ago a cop's or fireman's "bloated union" salary could not possibly get them a real home without scammy mortgages which I'm sure we're eagerly recommended to them. What were these people supposed to do? Not live anywhere? How does a society function without cops that can afford to live there?

And aerius, I expected better than anecdotal "biggest howlers" type case studies. That's exactly how newspapers stir up rage toward blacks on welfare. Don't you have statistics?