Why Big Towns are Going Bankrupt

Have you ever heard the phrase “you must live within your means?” Many of our big cities have no idea what that means and if you take a look at the biggest offenders you will notice three glaring commonalities. First, in the US what are the five most indebted big cities? I will go down the list from the biggest to the smallest and give you the general deficit and the unfunded liabilities and at the end I will give you the commonalities.

 

1.     Los Angeles, California with a population of 3.82 million people. It has a general deficit of $222 million and unfunded liabilities of $27 billion. http://ivn.us/2012/08/14/los-angeles-bankruptcy-may-be-coming/

2.     San Diego, California with a population of 1,326k. It has a general deficit of $2.1billion and unfunded liabilities of $45.4 billion. http://farquharlaw.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/should-the-city-of-san-diego-file-for-bankruptcy-it-has-45-4-billion-in-unfunded-pension-liabilities/

3.     Detroit, Michigan with a population of 706k. It has a general deficit of $45 million and unfunded liabilities of $12.7 billion. http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130314/METRO01/303140443

4.     Long Beach, California with a population of       465k. It has a general deficit of $18.5 million and unfunded liabilities of $1.164 billion. http://lbbusinessjournal.com/component/content/article/202-13-02-26/1336-long-beach-has-1164-billion-in-unfunded-personnel-costs.html

5.     Oakland, California with a population of 396k. It has a general deficit of $50 million and unfunded liabilities of $494 million. https://www.baycitizen.org/news/pensions/no-resolution-oaklands-unfunded-pension/

Have you noticed any oddities yet? California has four of the top five and you can guarantee they are just following their leadership. Of all the states, California is the number one state with the highest deficit. It has a general deficit of $21.3 billion and unfunded liabilities over $500 billion. I don’t want you to misunderstand; this isn’t their complete debt, just two of the highest areas. http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/states-pension-liability-tops-500-billion-stanford-study-finds-1641

The state in second place is Illinois It has a general deficit of $96.8 billion and unfunded liabilities over $275 billion. http://survivalandprosperity.com/2013/01/31/illinois-total-unfunded-liabilities-275-billion/

These two states by themselves have almost $1 trillion in deficits do to nefarious and destructive management. Remember what I said in the beginning, you must live within your means; well this is only part of the problem; the biggest part is poor or criminal leadership. So who are the leaders and their affiliations?

2013 Cities with Highest Deficit	Mayor	Party
1. Los Angeles, CA	Mayor Villaraigosa	Democrat
2. San Diego, CA	Mayor Bob Filner	Democrat
3. Detroit, MI	Mayor David Bing	Democrat
4. Long Beach, CA	Mayor Bob Foster	Democrat
5. Oakland, CA	Mayor Jean Quan	Democrat

Well what about the two states with the highest debt:

2013 States with Highest Deficit	Mayor	Party
1. California	Governor Jerry Brown	Democrat
2. Illinois	Governor Pat Quinn	Democrat

I don’t like Republicans any more then I like Democrats because neither party is doing what is best for their citizens, state, or country. That being said the Democrats are doing a worse job then the Republicans if you look at the stats. The ten most violent cities are also ran by all Democrats.

2013 Most Dangerous City	Mayor	Party
1. Camden, NJ	Mayor Dana Redd	Democrat
2. Detroit, MI	Mayor Dave Bing	Democrat
3. Atlanta, GA	Mayor Kasim Reed	Democrat
4. St. Louis, MO	Mayor Francis G. Slay	Democrat
5. Gary, IN	Mayor Karen Wilson	Democrat
6. Washington, DC	Mayor Vincent C. Gray	Democrat
7. Hartford, CT	Mayor Pedro Segarra	Democrat
8. New Orleans, LA	Mayor Mitch Landrieu	Democrat
9. Richmond, VA	Mayor Dwight Jones	Democrat
10. Birmingham, AL	Mayor William A. Bell	Democrat

Both parties, especially the Democrats want to give hard working peoples money to those who refuse to work to get votes. As a libertarian I am a firm believer you work for what you get; if you don’t work, you don’t get. People refusing to work and staying on welfare is the main reason for people living in poverty; like it or not poverty is directly related to crime.

2013 Poorest Large Cities	Mayor	Party
1. Detroit, MI	Dave Bing	Democrat
2. Cleveland, OH	Frank G. Jackson	Democrat
3. Buffalo, NY	Byron Brown	Democrat
4. Milwaukee, WI	Tom Barrett	Democrat
5. St. Louis, MO	Francis G. Slay	Democrat
6. Miami, FL	Tomás Regalado	Republican
7. Memphis, TN	A.C. Wharton	Democrat
8. Cincinnati, OH	Mark Mallory	Democrat
9. Philadelphia,  PA	Karen Freeman-Wilson	Democrat
10. Newark, NJ		Democrat

 If you turn the cities, states, and our country away from being full of entitlements and return to manufacturing and working, we the citizens will have a higher quality of life. If you are elderly or truly disabled, we as a nation need to take care of you. If you are an able body person you need to work. What really gets my blood pumping is when you have someone receiving a free cell phone because “it’s their right”. I am sorry it is not a right and when I grew up we were so poor we had a party line; now let’s see how many out there know what I’m talking about. Entitlements are killing our cities, states, and nation and it’s not just the welfare and free hand out entitlements, but also our government worker entitlements, something is wrong when the a government worker receives twice as much as a non-government worker doing the same job.

So why has so manufacturing jobs left so many states and even the US? Our city, state, and federal government have applied so many regulations to the manufactures they cannot compete in the global market so they move their facilities to a country where they can make a profit. In some cases (not all) it’s because unions become ridicules with their demands to a point that if the company doesn’t meet their demands they strike; it’s a loose, loose for both sides. If the employer stays and the union strike the company can loose contracts which makes them loose work and profits. If they give everything the union wants, they won’t make a profit. A company is in the business to make a profit.

Another question I have is why do these big town which are in financial trouble keep electing the same idiots to the elected positions if they haven’t fixed the problems? Are they so ignorant they don’t realize when the government goes broke all your free stuff will be gone. If the government you elected can’t pay their own bills and live within their means without taxing everyone to Kingdom Come, they are not good stewards of your money and should never be reelected. If you want to wake up one day and realize you can’t eat or feed your family because no one will take food stamps knowing if they do they won’t get paid; keep electing these financially irresponsible people. The choice is yours. They are not helping the poor; they are oppressing the poor.