Posted on 11/17/2011 7:31:31 PM PST by Hojczyk
With Detroit Mayor Dave Bing preparing to explain the city's fiscal crisis tonight in a rare televised address, Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown says the situation is even worse than anyone has let on.
Bing is expected to discuss a confidential Ernst & Young report obtained by the Detroit Free Press that suggests Detroit could run out of cash by April without steep cuts to staff and public services.
That's a grim prognosis, but according to Brown, the city actually could be unable to make payroll "as early as December."
"I know the report says April, but there are certain risk assumptions that when you take those into consideration, worst case scenario you could run out (of cash) in December," Brown said this morning on WJR-AM 760.
In his speech tonight, Bing is expected to propose privatizing the city's public bus system and lighting departments, both of which have have been failing residents but reportedly cost them $100 million a year in subsidies.
Brown supports that long-term plan, but he is hoping the mayor will couple it with a short-term strategy to lay off up to 2,300 city workers if unions fail to agree to long-discussed concessions.
If Bing doesn't, City Council will.
"If the mayor tonight comes out with a plan that does not address the short-term and long-term issues, the Council is going to come out with a plan. We're going to put it in a resolution, send it to the governor and say 'We're willing to make these cuts.'"
Yup. Detroit is Exhibit A for the decay of Urban America.
Not a pretty sight.
Detroit was once considered so important, “the arsenal of democracy”, that it was the first US city protected by a missile defense system. The remnants of the system now house the homeless.
In Detroit, apparently shovel-ready projects didn’t turn things around there.
Are you familiar with Michigan’s new Emergency Manager law?
The State of MI won’t bail Detroit out, it will shut it down so to speak and bust the unions out of business.
And oh, it’s rather red here since last fall...
Gov. Snyder and Detroit Mayor Bing have a clear understanding on this and Bing has not been shy the last few days warning the unions of their impending demise.
Let them eat Democrats.
Yup, that was porkulous money, from your pocket and mine...by way of the UAW whorehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue...
Yes, Occupy Detroit is out there in all the news in the Detroit markets, problem ironically is there were no muggings, rapes, murders, lice, suicides, shootings along with a real small turnout.
Anyone remember in the Kentucky Fried Movie where as punishment the evil Karate Master sent the spy to Detroit?
Like most rust belt states, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, You have two states in one: on one hand an archipelago of concentrations of filthy parasite urban dwellers and on the other an expanse of solid middle America supporting them.
Not much to crow about. Who in their right mind would want to occupy Detroit? Not even the Left wants it.
/sarc
The city wants to do exactly that, but sadly it can not afford it.
bfl
Lots of folks going at least partly Galt is going to provide increased use of the words “unexpected” and “unprecedented”.
In Ohio the union thugs were so busy partying and gloating that they missed Kasich's comments on the defeat of issue 2, when he said the state has no money-- and there is no bailout in sight for the cities. The cities in Ohio are all basically broke already themselves, and are now on their own dealing with ravenous union wolves.
Already done.
I’ve seen some pictures of Detroit recently, and it’s shocking that a major American city looks like a war zone. Sometimes people here attach the pictures of Detroit, Camden, New Jersey, Gary, Indiana, and some other hell holes.
But how can American cities look like war zones, when we haven’t been invaded by a foreign army? You really wonder, how it is that our own residents tear these places apart????
Who would invest in such madness? Greek bonds look a lot better. Heck, even Italian bonds are paying 7% for the risk.
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