Posted on 09/02/2009 6:04:50 PM PDT by Lorianne
The recession is finally hitting city budgets, with overall city revenues inching down in fiscal 2009 for the first time since 2002, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the National League of Cities.
Weak growth in property taxes, reflecting soft housing prices, did not counterbalance sharp declines in other sources of income, including sales taxes, income taxes and state aid, according to a survey of 379 league member cities.
Overall city revenues declined by 0.4%, even as expenses rose 2.5%, and city officials expect steep drops in tax collections in the next two years, making for the worst outlook in the 24 years the group has been surveying its members. Western cities were particularly downbeat.
Because employee wages, health care and pensions are a major component of municipal budgets, two-thirds of the cities reported hiring freezes or layoffs. Almost as many cities said they were postponing big construction projects.
While a quarter of the cities said they raised property tax rates, far more -- 45% -- raised fees on everything from garbage collection to overdue library books.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
And of course when times are good and tax revenues are climbing every year they spend every penny starting new programs and hiring people. Then when the downturn comes, as it most certainly will, they are caught with their pants down. Heaven forbid they should set aside some of those increased revenues to help tide them over during the slack periods.
There are some governmental bodies that set aside money for a rainy day fund, but they are exception.
The retiement program lost $400,000,000 last year and they just gave the union a new contract with an increase in retirement benefits.
Sometimes it takes a crisis for government (local, State, and Federal) to STOP spending like it’s all free! All branches of government have grown excessively and as we all know, once programs are in place, they can NOT be removed.
What we really need is a party to actually FIRE many in government, especially the Federal government. There are so many useless agencies draining the Federal coffers that it has become as expensive as most third world nations. Close them all down! Energy, NPR, Education, HUD, etc...
The more agencies that you have, the less freedoms the people have...
The only way out of this pickle is a lot of inflation for a long time. Local governments are relatively devoid of the imagination needed under such circumstances, and limited by state government as to alternatives to whatever they are doing now. At the state and federal level, huge inflation is manageable over time, and more than a few politicians will relish inflation as a way to cover the costs of all the borrowing required to fund all these bailouts, universal health care, and whatever else the federal government comes up with to spread it around, level the playing field, or whatever else becomes the current slogan of the socialists and their moonbeam friends.
Never thought I would see it but Dave Bing has brought some hope to Detroit as Mayor. I only hope he can survive the culture of gimmie that is so entrenched there.
The other day when 50 bus drivers held an informal strike, Bing pointed out that service was unaffected and fired them all.
The governments need to learn how to print pink slips instead of higher tax bills.
butbutbutbut... tax revenues only fall when evil Republicans CUT taxes, not when heroic Democrats raise them!!
Well, maybe if they tried Liberal policies one more time . . . .
Mayor Doucheberg here in NYC thought he had the asnswer to declining tax revenues that were murdering his laughable proposed budget. He agreed to raise the sales tax and guess what-it turns out that sales tax revenues are now down substantially from last year as New Yorker now do their shopping in Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
The only one who are actually paying the higher sales taxes are the poor who can’t afford to hoof it out of state.
It’s surprising how much pure hatred Bloomberg has generated in the last 6 months and much of it is because his decision to screw the citizens of city on term limits.
Here's hoping for sooner rather than later.
Somebody forgot to mention setting the armed revenue enhancement agents (cops) loose to issue $300 citations for dim license plate lightbulbs, etc.
I agree completely. It’s an insidious tax on everyone, but there doesn’t seem to be any other way out of this box.
its their high taxes that helped us get where we are
“The retiement program lost $400,000,000 last year and they just gave
the union a new contract with an increase in retirement benefits.”
After hearing Bill Clinton talk about “shared sacrifice” in the early
1990s, I’ve learned the operative definition.
Shared Sacrifice: You’re going to sacrifice because we’re going to
legally force you to share more of your stuff with us.
Because when we Democrats/militant unionists/”public servants”
“screw the pooch”...we never pay the price. In fact we get an increase
in our pay and benefits.
That was the idea Ronald Reagan went to Washington to make a reality. Eight years later he publicly said that he had underestimated the strength and power of the bureaucracy! He managed to get some control over growth, but wasn't able to actually reduce the size and influence of government. Not the government that we elect, but rather that government that is the bureaucracy that is worse than anything ever portrayed in sci-fi or horror flicks. It just goes on and on, getting bigger all the time, resistant to attempt to control it or contain it.
RR did manage to reduce the size of government but only as a percentage of the growing GDP. The bureaucracy has an uncanny ability to make itself invisible and wait out any politician who vows to take them on. And then as soon as he was gone it cranked right back up again.
The only way it will ever be handled is to starve it, not for a few years, but for decades. And by starve I mean STARVE, not put it on a diet. It's not enough to tell it no more pies and ice cream or cookies or cakes or sugar water drinks.
The problem here though is that the various agencies that make up the killer bureaucracy have made it a point to groom millions and millions of VOTERS who are beholden to them, in many instances to the extent they have no other means of income or support. You will not be able to get the bureaucracy under control until you somehow stop the proliferation of the American class that gets something from government.
That's the problem and I'm only happy to point out the obvious. Now, let's find someone who can do the heavy lifting and DO something about it! I'm out of ideas. We've tried all the usual suspects. We gave them the House and the Senate and the White House and all they did was play like the other side. Government got bigger and more intrusive and then along comes Obama and he builds on the existing bloated base and adds all sorts of Marxist ploys and plans to it.
I think they're only two things that will solve the problem. One is horrible, the complete and total collapse of the present system, to be rebuilt from scratch like the forest that is wiped out by a forest fire. The other is GREAT and I pray for it daily when I pray “Thy kingdom come!” God has known since day one that it would be like this. Jesus told us in no uncertain terms that there would be times like these, and worse. It will end when the trumpet sounds and Jesus returns with a shout to claim His own and take them to be with Him forever, leaving the others to answer for the havoc that Satan has wrought since his downfall. I have no idea what Jesus will shout on that great day, but I heard a pastor once who said he thought it would one word, loud and clear, “ENOUGH!” Amen.
Sooooo instead of cutting costs and employees, local govt’s. are simply raising taxes.
Throw the bums out.
A bus failed to run in Detroit, and nobody noticed?
(Insert the Ruins of Detroit here).
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