Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 07/26/2013 9:25:06 AM PDT by jazusamo
Union leaders are calling on Congress and President Obama to provide a federal bailout to the city of Detroit.
The executive council of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, called for an “immediate infusion of federal assistance for Detroit” to be matched by the State of Michigan, which they say has not done enough to keep the city from going through bankruptcy.
“Bankruptcy must not be used as a tool to impoverish City of Detroit workers or retirees. City workers have already made severe concessions to keep the city afloat,” the executive council said in a statement. “They are not to blame for Detroit’s financial problems, yet they have been making sacrifices all along the way to help the city out.”
The executive council, which consists of more than 50 leaders from various organized labor groups, are angry about pensions for retired workers facing suspension if Detroit goes through Chapter 6 bankruptcy.
“It appears that Governor [Rick] Snyder and [Emergency Financial Manager] Kevyn Orr are pushing Detroit into bankruptcy to gut the modest benefits received by Detroit’s retired public service employees,” the AFL-CIO’s statement reads.
Snyder appointed the emergency financial manager in March to try and help the Motor City sort out its finances.
The governor has come under fire for hiring a Washington bankruptcy attorney, which the AFL-CIO said shows bankruptcy was his plan all along.
“Mr. Orr’s decision to file for bankruptcy can be taken as confirmation that he was hired, secretly and ahead of a declared financial emergency, because he is a bankruptcy expert,” the organization writes.
Orr represented Chrysler during the car company’s 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring.
Snyder said on Sunday that he can “empathize” with the city’s retirees, but said the decision to go into bankruptcy had to be made, given the city’s financial state.
He noted that, due to cutbacks, most of the city’s street lights no longer work and police often take up to an hour to respond to calls.
“There were no other viable options,” Snyder said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Earlier this week, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said he had been receiving “great support” from the White House, but that it would be difficult to ask for direct assistance.
“They have been helpful, but now that we've done our bankruptcy filing, I think we've got to take a step back and see what's next,” he said on ABC’s “This Week. “I'm not sure exactly what to ask for. I mean, money is going help, no doubt about that, but how much?”
Members of Congress have rejected the calls to bailout the city.
On Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) filed an amendment to appropriations legislation that would ban the federal government bailing out financially troubled cities.
“There's no good reason why Detroit or any other American city ought to receive a taxpayer-funded bailout from Washington," Cornyn said. "I hope that the normal bankruptcy process will be allowed to go forward, and I hope that the bankruptcy follows the rule of law, and the Obama Administration resists any temptation to meddle in the process and play politics."
Detroit would be about $600 million in the red this year, if it hadn’t pulled out loans to finance the deficit.
Orr said in his earlier report about the city’s finances that it had “exhausted” its ability to borrow anymore and will finish out the current budget year with a $162 million cash-flow shortfall.
Detroit's bankruptcy would be the largest for a municipality in U.S. history.
Trumka and his AFL-CIO along with other unions should bail out the city with the hundreds of millions in their Democrat political fund.
What took so long?
Well, that was unexpected.
Some backdoor Federal bailout of Detroit is inevitable IMO.
Public sector unions are just too valuable to the Dems as a money laundering operation. Not to mention the AFL-CIO may beat us to the third-party punch if things don’t start going their way soon.
Look for a steady string of media sob stories about retired Detroit police and firefighters eating dog food to commence.
They really need a bailout... should not be pitting their profligate spending habits over impoverished horse-shoe laborers...
They are asking for a bailout for themselves, not Detroit. By their attitudes they prove they don’t give a rip about Detroit.
Someone please explain to me why my federal tax dollars should be used to bail out one of the most corrupt city’s in the country? If you live in Detroit and you care about your city, maybe you need to pay closer attention to who you vote into office. For those of us in the other 49 states...not our problem. Your leaders dug this hole and put you in it. It’s up to them to fix it...not the rest of us.
Say buddy, can you spare a massive cash infusion so a guy can get a, uh, something to eat?
Maggie Thatcher warned us about money and running out, etc. This would be cash pounded down a rathole. And Zero knows it.
Twenty-thousand retired and ten-thousand employed plus all the other non-Detroit unions probably equal 100,000 votes. They will probably get something. A direct bailout won’t work, it will be hidden in other 10,000 page bills way down in the fine print. It may be a medical subsidy or a tax write-off or special grants, it won’t be called a bailout.
Republicans must be vigilant, but even so, throw enough sh*t at the wall some of it is bound to stick.
In 2009 - 2010, the federal government bailed-out California and other states out using back door medicaid reimbursement schemes. I am sure that if the bail-out was 50% fed and 50% state for Detroit, back-door funding channels would mean 100% bail out by the feds.
If they start bailing out bankrupt cities, that is a slippery slope that has no end.
Some 200 cities are in dire financial condition, similar to Detroit. Probably, hundreds of other cities and towns have financial problems, too.
If the FED ever started bailing them out, hundreds of cities and towns would jump on that bailout wagon and want their ‘fair’ share.
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Let Detroit take care of itself. It got itself in that predicament. It didn’t happen overnight. It took years. Let those politicians ‘fiscally’ responsible assume the liability.
If we had a real department of justice that was actually interested in enforcing the law, the FBI would be down there seizing the records of the city council and the unions.
That’s really what it will take on the government end.
“Look for a steady string of media sob stories about retired Detroit police and firefighters eating dog food...”
I haven’t seen any yet, and that’s the first thing I thought they’d foist onto center stage, here.
Detroit is now a war zone. Maybe “O” needs to declare it an open city and send the guard.
If he has to ‘nationalize’ the infrastructure, so be it.
Not a bailout.
A Detroit stimulus.
That last ~1T$ stimulus really revved up the US economy.
Clearly we need to throw money at Detroit as well.
Debt is obviously not a problem anymore.
And I have a bridge for sale, cheap.
There WILL BE A BAILOUT but it will come from 0bama’s stash in a stealthy UNtransparent way.
I suspect that Obama is really leaning toward this. His pals Jay Z and Beyonce are pushing it too.
The only surprise here is that it took them almost a week to ask for the bailout.
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