Posted on 07/20/2013 12:46:04 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
But while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has capably overseen Detroits march to Chapter 9, neither the state nor the federal government has evinced any inclination to provide meaningful financial assistance.
Thats a mistake. No one likes bailouts or the prospect of rewarding Detroits historic fiscal mismanagement. But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroits problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually Congress decided to help them.
America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility. Government does this in so many ways; why shouldnt it help Detroit rebuild itself?
Many call for scaling back the city to fit realistic population projections. While logical, the potential for downsizing Detroit is limited because the citys population didnt flee from just one neighborhood; the departures were scattered, requiring Detroit to deliver services across a geographic area the size of Philadelphia, with less than half the population. Further cuts will surely come, but in some key areas, like public safety and blight removal, Detroit needs to spend more, not less.
That necessitates large-scale reductions in its liabilities, which total as much as $18 billion. By comparison, the countrys second largest municipal bankruptcy that of Jefferson County, Ala., which is slightly smaller than Detroit in population involves $4 billion of liabilities.
Detroit faces greater challenges than the automakers because the structure of its obligations is quite different from those of General Motors and Chrysler.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I’m OK with NYC bailing out Destroit.
Just don’t come begging money from the rest of America. We’ve got enough of our own problems.
We don’t have to save Detroit, that is what elections are for. The only problem in Detroit is too much RAT poison.
BOHICA!
Thank you Mr. Rattner, but we’ll try to handle this on our own. No, really.
Throwing money at Detroit is like trying to cure a RAT problem by over feeding them.
The comments at the link are great. The vast majority are staunchly against any kind of bailout. Even the ones who are for a bailout are very halfhearted about it.
When you’ve lost the comment section of the New York Times ...
fyi, an Obama minion speaks
F FUBO NO!
the first question should be why the nyt lets a criminal lke rattner write a column anyway.
No, we don’t.
I'll bet even a Republican city election slate would be made up of 'Rats masquerading as GOP.
In short, any effort, even by the Feds, is going to be throwing money down a 'Rat hole.
These Obama voters are so smart...smarter than everyone else......let's see them get out of this by themselves.
Leni
And, for only conservative Republicans to be allowed to run for office for the next 20 years.
Somebody should tell the writter that the residents of NY didn’t vote to have have a Hurricane hit them.
So Yes, the folks in Detroit deserve what they get.
Hail no!
Detroit, one of our HMCs. (Historically Mismanaged City)
Why not, if we can have historically black colleges???
there will be a long list of cities ans states demanding bailouts - and getting them
Millions if not billions of taxpayer dollars would do nothing to help Detroit in the long term. Like all of the other bailouts and stimulus dollars forked over by Obama, the money would be funneled into the pockets of unions and cronies and generally wasted.
Have a tv reality show where monster trucks and other gear tear down the old buildings. Have Carzilla take apart buildings.
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