How to Handle Local & State Bankruptcy

There’s a new book out on just that subject, on City Journal.

Just giving money to the city or state is an exercise in futility, unless they also agree, as a condition of that assistance, to cut expenses. And I think we all know how that will likely work out - and, has in the past.

The problem is not generally an unexpected crisis, but the natural result of years and decades of irresponsible spending. Their largely fictional budgets are filled with fairytale anticipation of a Prince Charming who will rescue the city, lavishly spending to employ unprepared workers to do jobs they aren’t even remotely qualified for.

When pressed to make cuts, the politicians shriek that this would mean KILLING people, all of whom are helpless to provide for themselves. Apparently, none of the city or state workers are capable of finding and working a job outside the generous domain of public employment.

Pay cuts, or even reductions in the near-automatic yearly raises, would likewise send the employees to the poorhouse, along with their hapless families.

Any cutback in spending would bring government functions to a complete halt (apparently, the response that this might be a good thing is both heartless and evil).

So, year after year, those same entities continue electing the same financial dullards to continue fleecing the public. They only pause long enough to DEMAND more money to keep starving, surly grifters from having to earn an honest living.

The only long-term solution is to insist the any money be coupled with turning out the city/state workers that currently hold elected positions. If they stay, they cannot be paid. The bailed-out city/state will have ALL spending and borrowing managed by actual financial experts from outside.

Allow the subdivisions - for the state, the counties, for the cities, the wards or precincts - to replace the city services with private ones. That could include running the DMV (it’s run privately in OH, and works much better than the state DMV ever did), trash collection (I’ve lived in two cities that contract for that service), fire and security protection, and managing city parks and schools. They can have an amount of money equal to what their citizens put into the treasury to handle the job.

What this does is return the governance to the lowest possible level, a goal of those who believe that the best government is that which governs least.