Posted on 07/22/2013 6:47:05 AM PDT by IbJensen
Detroit is a showcase for the liberal agenda — and now it is bankrupt. More than 50 years of control by big-government liberals and union bosses have left a once-great American city crippled and deteriorating.
Last week Detroit became the largest city in American history to declare bankruptcy. Few were surprised, as the city’s been struggling for years.
The unemployment rate in Detroit is 16 percent, more than twice the national average. The city’s government-run schools have failed, with just 7 percent of eighth graders proficient in reading. It takes police about an hour to respond to calls, and the city has more than $18 billion in unfunded liabilities. The city’s population has dropped by a quarter in just the last decade, as hundreds of thousands have voted with their feet and left.
It hasn’t always been this way, of course. For decades, the city of Detroit was a manufacturing powerhouse. The assembly line was perfected there, and brought with it the idea of a middle-class lifestyle based on manufacturing. Tanks and planes made in Detroit helped make the U.S. the arsenal of democracy. And after World War II the city boomed, producing cars that helped make the American dream achievable for millions. Motown Records produced music that defined a generation, with artists who remain household names such as Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson 5.
Many of Detroit’s problems resulted from a lack of political competition. Democrats have dominated the city council, and there’s been a Democratic mayor since 1962. One-party government quickly became bad government, featuring a stream of liberal, blue-state policies such as sweet deals for government unions. Now, though, the bill has come due for these liberal policies.
“For decades, Detroit sustained itself through the usual suspects of bad fiscal management: unaffordable borrowing, state grant schemes, raising taxes, and deferring public pension contributions rather than cutting city spending,” explain Heritage’s Alison Acosta Fraser and Rachel Greszler. “But Detroit’s tragic downward cycle has reached its end.”
>>> Detroit Bankruptcy Is No Time for Federal Bailouts
There’s much Washington should learn from Detroit. The federal government has a staggering national debt of more than $17 trillion, larger than the U.S. economy. Fraser and Greszler note that future federal spending “will be driven to the breaking point” by entitlement programs.
Even as Detroit struggles, its state, Michigan, has taken a positive step. In December, it passed a right-to-work law, becoming the 24th state to do so. That will introduce competition and make the state a more attractive place for people to do business, and for employees as well.
“Workers in right-to-work states enjoy higher wage growth and, when cost of living is factored into the equation, better compensation than their counterparts in forced unionism states,” notes Vincent Vernuccio of the Mackinac Center. And by reducing the power of public-sector unions, the move should help the state and local governments reduce the pension promises that eventually dragged Detroit down.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in life, but Americans of all stripes — blue and red — should hope he was wrong. In order for Detroit to succeed again, however, its leaders must realize why they city has failed.
A great spot for Obama to demonstrate his prowess with the basketball. He's a true champ, just ask him.
Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, progressivism: there's not a dimes worth of difference between these failed and miserable ideologies. Adherents continue to believe that they need to keep trying and perhaps it will work 'this time.'
America is long down the road to destruction and only something like a revival of the 1776 minutemen could possibly save us all.
Everyone knows it is a disaster even the Left. However the Left is not chastised. They honestly believe that their quest for “social justice” ( welfare, huge salaries, enormous guaranteed pensions, comprehensive health plans etc) trumps any concern for fiscal responsibility or economic. There is simply no understanding or on how real wealth is created. What’s more there will now be an enormous push for the Federal government through its ability to borrow and print to “save” Detroit. The usual race cards will of course be played. Bottom line is that America is more decadent and poorer. Socialist policies destroy wealth production and bring on misery.
The latest mantra from the left:
Evil, greedy, capitalist republicans destroyed Detroit by moving their businesses to the south and chasing evil profits, instead of staying in Detroit and meeting their “social obligations”.
As lefties see it (but don’t say it), the social obligation of a business is to pay more and more in taxes so public union employees can have fat retirements and corrupt local government officials have a big pot of money to steal.
That's why I never buy into the "things will get so bad they'll HAVE to start electing conservatives" line of thought.
The left will never relinquish their hold, they'll just get more brutal.
The same holds true in Washington and the National Debt. Is anybody serious about taking the necessary steps to reverse this downward spiral or are we all protecting our own, personal interests as the country goes to hell in a hand basket?
We need honest leaders but there not anywhere to be found. Instead, the majority of the citizenry voted for a pop star who is more concerned about Trayvon than the well being of the nation.
Our Founding Fathers are hanging their heads and puzzled by what we have become.
>In order for Detroit to succeed again, however, its leaders must realize why they city has failed.<
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It’s leaders realize what went wrong, but that doesn’t mean they will admit to it and correct the situation.
Case in point — our broken immigration policy will not be fixed any time soon.
The article totally ignores that fact that it is 60 years of black liberal governance that has ruined Detroit. Even since Coleman Young was elected, all politics in Detroit has been racially driven.
Detroit’s problem is not liberalism. Detroit’s problem is corruption. After all, there are no ordinances dictating that you can’t smoke in public, eat a powdered doughnut, or drink a big gulp. Its legal to walk the streets of Detroit with an AR-15 slung across your back if you choose.
When Monica Conyers announced that no city contracts would go to contractors that “Don’t look like us”, it wasn’t liberalism, it was racism.
When the casinos lobbied to get rid of street vendors, it wasn’t liberalism, it was cronyism and corruption.
When Kwame Kilpatric conspired with Matty Maroun in an attempt to seize control of the Detroit Windsor tunnel, it wasn’t liberalism, it was corruption.
The simple fact is that the corruption has driven lots of small business underground in ways that FReepers only talk about. JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Quicken loans, Compuware and others do fine in Detroit because they can afford the payoffs.
Lose the corruption, excessive taxation, and regulations, and small businesses will sprout out of the ground like mushrooms after a spring rain.
Jesse Jackass Jackson went to Detroit and some illustrious residents decided to spread his wealth by stealing the wheels off his Suburban.
The situation now is like all socialist experiments, the Detroiters have run out of other people's money. Now the lawyers and the politicians will feed on what is left. No one expects any Detroit official to ever keep his word or honor his commitments. No one even expects them to obey the very laws they have sworn an oath to enforce. Detroit is a city of professional victims. They will say it is up to someone else to clean up their mess.
“In order for Detroit to succeed again, however, its leaders must realize why they city has failed.”
They won’t. It’s always been “whitey’s fault.”
Yep, lefties blame the actual effects of their policies on the ability of people to escape their polices.
Don’t worry Detroit ,Obama is about to focus like a Laser on jobs and fix everything
You gotta love the latest meme we’re hearing from the left. Now 50 years of liberalis has driven business away along with the related tax base, they want to claim that the low tax revenues are the cause (not the result) of Detroit’s downfall, so using this backward logic the pinheads at MSNBC are now calling it a showcase of conservative policies.
1. Raze every crumbling building in the city.
2. Reduce the physical size of the Detroit city limits to something much smaller, and the remain areas subdivided into smaller, manageable towns.
3. Get rid of the current city government and have it directly managed from the Michigan state capital for the next 4-5 years until an all-new city government is put into place.
4. Turn all of Wayne County into a permanent enterprise zone with lower taxes and less burdensome regulations and focus its economic base away from the automobile industry and towards trade between the USA and Canada per NAFTA agreements. After all, a huge fraction of the goods trade between Canada and USA goes through Detroit now anyway.
5. Build a second highway crossing between Detroit and Windsor, ON that directly connects Interstates 94 and 75 on the Detroit side and Ontario Highway 401 (the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway) on the Windsor side. This will expedite goods trade between Detroit and Windsor and end the bottleneck of the Ambassador Bridge between the two cities.
Detroit has the potential to be THE crossroads for goods trade between the USA and Canada. With the reforms I suggested, it could become a shining example of a city literally reborn with a much wider economic base than before.
Great ideas ...but you forgot one ...chase out all the liberal Dem politicians that are like a CANCER to any functioning society.
That was #3. They need to close down the current Detroit city government and start all over again.
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