Posted on 07/20/2013 12:46:04 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
But while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has capably overseen Detroit’s march to Chapter 9, neither the state nor the federal government has evinced any inclination to provide meaningful financial assistance.
That’s a mistake. No one likes bailouts or the prospect of rewarding Detroit’s historic fiscal mismanagement. But apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s 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 shouldn’t 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 city’s population didn’t 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 country’s 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 ...
apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems
Why “apart from voting”?
Seems to me that’s how they got IN this mess.
I saw that Detroit, with a population of 700,000, has 10,000 city workers on the payroll. I ain’t no genius but I bet you could trim just a few of them.
We have two choices.
Either we let democrats “fix” it or conservatives come up with real free market solutions.
Those are the only legitimate choices because Detroit is barely a pimple compared to what lies just over the horizon and we better have workable solutions when it comes.
No Mr. Rattner, we need to step in and save our country from the liberal policies that are ruining us.
Really? Detroit's politicians are appointed and not elected?
(Detroit's final Republican mayor left office 51 years ago, when Detroit was still a great place to live and work. Then, after just 5 years with Dems in control, the Race Riots took place. Since then, the white population of the city went from 1.1 million to 55,000 today. Purely coincidental, and has NOTHING to do with voting, political choices, city laws, city taxes or anything else. It was an act of God, like Hurricane Sandy, and you can NOT blame anyone, especially anyone with a slightly higher melanin content in their skin. Heaven forfend!!)
No we don’t Steve. Detroit is a rat-infested hell-hole.
Your very own NYC is due soon. CWII couldn’t happen soon enough. It seems that all the rat infested hell-holes of the north have messed their bed and must now lie in it.
Don’t worry Detroit, the Congress will add a earmark to the amnesty bill giving you all the money you need to pay those union pensions.
Count me (and my money) out. I don’t want to give these feral lawless losers in detroit any help or any thing.
“But apart from voting in elections” is like asking Molly Todd Lincoln “Other than that, how was the play?”. The voters and unions got what they wanted and killed the golden goose. Detroit can always be useful, as an example of how NOT to manage a city.
I have one simple reason the NYTimes writer is wrong - the people of Detroit elected the governments that got them where they are today. The people that tried to elect different government in Detroit, and failed, left in frustration. Indirectly, the people left in Detroit ARE responsible - they got the governments they asked for. That’s why everyone else left.
The only way to help them now would be to ask them nothing and impose some solutions on them. Oh gee; that’s what a bankruptcy court is going to do for us. There - mission accomplished.
Saving Detroit sets the precedent for saving California and Illinois.
Why is it every time I hear a liberal say “we have to...” I can feel a hand in my wallet?
They can just use some of Obama’s money. What would Rattner think if I bought a car and made him pay for it? Why should the rest of the country bail out people who knowingly and consistently voted for crooks? Try to get your neighbors to pay your mortgage. See what they say.
After reading Rattner’s bio. and since he so firmly believes that Detroit should be bailed out, my suggestion is that Rattner use his millions to bail Detroit out.
Detroit is what happens when you run out of other people’s money to spend, Mr. Rattner! Spend some of yours and save Detroit!
STOP RIGHT THERE. "Apart from voting in elections." That is the difference and you CANNOT make an equivalence with hurricane relief by dismissing that pesky little fact.
Furthermore, if you ignore that abysmal electoral choices played a major role in causing the problem, you also miss the fact that abysmal electoral choices will follow during the "recovery."
Does the phrase "throwing good money after bad" ring any bells, Rattner?
That's what I was going to say, but I was going to call for forced relocation.
The only thing left to save Detroit is for Obama's domestic army to round up people and forcibly relocate them to Detroit. Nobody's going to willingly move there now.
The state should just demolish the empty sections and resize the city boundaries.
-PJ
Let Detroit return to the earth and name it Liberal National Monument.
What sort of feeble-minded scumbag would write something like this?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.