Cities can and have gone bankrupt.
Not just Detroit and Stockton .
Future performance on pensions, etc. then reviewed by a judge.
So the only way that the body that is elected to determine the budget to cancel budget items from previous city councils (or school boards, etc) is to go through bankruptcy? It requires another branch to step in to override the sometimes long gone city council which started the disaster?
So effectively, an eternal budget can be created until a judge gets around to putting a stop to it, but future councils can do nothing until the judge says so?
I know how it worked in San Bernardino and Stockton, neither council had the guts to actually bring the budget back in line and while they tried with a few half hearted measures, bankruptcy was a political dodge more than anything else.