Local Governments Cutting Jobs and Services--Job losses projected to approach 500,000

National League of Cities, National Association of Counties ^

[DeaconBenjamin]

Unemployment in America is a national crisis. It is also a local crisis. As individuals and families struggle to find work, make ends meet, and keep their homes amid an anemic economic recovery, they increasingly turn to local services for support.

* * *

Unfortunately, just as families are increasingly turning to local governments for support, local governments are facing their own fiscal crisis. The effects of the Great Recession on local budgets will be felt most deeply from 2010 to 2012. In response, local governments are cutting services and personnel.

This report from the National League of Cities (NLC), National Association of Counties (NACo), and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) reveals that local government job losses in the current and next fiscal years will approach 500,000, with public safety, public works, public health, social services and parks and recreation hardest hit by the cutbacks.

Local governments are being forced to make significant cuts that will ... curtail essential services, and increase the number of people in need.

This report presents the latest survey results from local officials on job losses and service cuts. The survey results point to the urgent need for federal action to minimize layoffs and service cuts in order to help families and stabilize local economies.

THE ECONOMIC ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

* * *

Local budget crises lead to job losses in both the public and private sectors. The business of local governments is often conducted through the private sector.... The Economic Policy Institute estimates that for every 100 public sector layoffs there are 30 private sector layoffs.

Local and state governments comprise one of the nation’s largest employment industries, larger than the manufacturing and construction industries combined. Local governments account for seven in every 10 of these employees.

[N. Theknow]

The same bottom line applies: They arrive at the scene of a crime after the fact. They investigate after the fact. They look at the crime scene after the crime has been committed. They pick up the bodies after the murders.

How would they be able to do any of this "before" the fact?

If you think the police are protecting you, you are living in a dream world.

In my dreams I envision the prisons and jails full of the miscreants the police have protected everyone from having to deal with or of being further victims to their crimes.

[Parmy]

It is still a dream world.