Anyone drawing a paycheck from the Public treasury should be forbidden by law from unionizing.
But the State politicians would rather dump their problems on a bankruptcy trustee and force him to make all the tough decisions and take all the political heat for them. Then they can tell their voters and supporters that they had no choice but to file and were totally against all those mean decisions the bankruptcy court made.
"You'd better bail out the states if necessary. It will be The End Of The World As We Know It if some munis go down. You remember what side your bread is buttered on, right??"
Ping for later...
They make the declaration that instead of cutting excess teachers, state maintenance workers or cutting their 6 figure salaries, they threaten to cut Police, crime fighting and fire fighters instead.
The stupid publik sure “wakes up” fast don't they?
Bankruptcy is the only way to deal with union contracts and union pensions.
I’ve posted this on other threads today so I apologize up-front if you’ve already seen it. Still here it comes.
I’ve thought about this for a bit. And I have come to the conclusion that I think that it would be a good thing if a state of the United States were permitted to claim bankruptcy.
With that being said I do have a few conditions of my own.
1. The State wishing to declare bankruptcy would have to relinquish it’s standing as a ‘state’. It would assume the status of a territory of the United States.
2. It would lose the right to elect Senators and Congressmen to the Federal Congress while under Territory Status.
3. Although the Territory that was formerly a state could elect State Senators and State representatives to their “Territory House” Formerly known as the State Senate and State House of Representatives. They would not be able to elect a Governor. The territory Governor would be appointed from Washington D.C with the Full Congress and Senate passing approval by 66% of the voting members.
4. The Territory would not lose Territory status and Regain Statehood until the Following minimal requirements are met:
A. Territory status will be for a period of not less than 10 years.
B. A Territory must have a positive balance in their ‘books’ for at least two years consecutively.
C. No City or County within the Territory may be or have been in bankruptcy Status for at least 4 years prior to the Act of Reinstatement of Statehood being granted.
D. All Debts and obligations incurred by the former State that brought about the State Bankruptcy must be discharged for a period of 4 years prior to the Act of Reinstatement of Statehood being granted.
If you think about it, these conditions are very reasonable. Bankruptcy should have consequences and losing political power and a place at the Federal Hog Trough should be among them.
Who cares if the Bond Markets get rattled?
Just like with mortgages in 2007, the muni/state bond risk has been covered up by accomodative, short-term gov’t policies. The risk is there, and it will come out sooner or later.
State Gov’ts AND the bond markets need to be rattled.
If they laid off every current worker they just might be able to pay the pension and benefits for the retired workers. Teachers in my town can retire at 52 (it's going down to 50) so they can work ~30 years and then live off their pension for 30 years. It's insane.