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Newsweek, 2009: “We Are All Socialists Now.”
Newsweek’s successor, 2013: “Relax, We’re Not Detroit.” Chip Diller, call your office:
But this is not the story of every large American city. Far from it. In fact, it is comparatively hard to find direct analogues to Detroit in the U.S. Most large cities in the U.S. continue to grow, many are thriving, and most are surviving. No state has lost 10 percent of its population, much less 50 percent. Of course there are jurisdictions with very serious fiscal issues—Illinois comes to mind. And we will have a rolling problem with municipal and state pensions; retirees will likely end up with less than they are entitled to, and less than they deserve. But all the states and the overwhelming majority of cities have the ability to adapt—they can raise taxes, or cut spending, or fire people (state and local governments have axed 1 million jobs over the past few years), or offload costs to the federal government.
Or, not. As Philip K. Howard notes in a new video from Prager University on “The Public Unions vs. the Public,” over the past decade, Los Angeles “succeed in firing a total of five teachers out of 33,000. And it cost Los Angeles $3,500,000 to do so.” It gets even scarier from there:
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Related: CBS reports “Unemployment rates up in 90 percent of U.S. cities.” Unexpectedly, no doubt.
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