FLINT, MICHIGAN’S BLUE MODEL CRISIS:
Where there’s a crisis in a modern American city, blue model failures—in particular, bankrupt pension funds or intractable public unions—are probably lurking not far below the surface. That is certainly the case for the water contamination disaster in Flint, Michigan, which is traceable to the city’s desperate efforts to save money by switching its water source from the City of Detroit’s water system to the Flint River. As the Daily Caller‘s Blake Neff reports, the city made that decision under heavy budgetary pressures, caused, in part, by its untenable public pension system. . . .
Does the emergency in Flint point to the politics of the future, in which tapped out blue cities will increasingly be unable to supply the basic needs of their citizens, and be forced to appeal to the federal government for help? As other blue cities face increasingly serious crises of governability, there are reasons to worry that it might.
The Democratic presidential candidates earned applause last night for denouncing Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s handling of the Flint situation. But have any of them offered a plan for addressing the underlying cost problems plaguing Flint and other Democratic-controlled urban areas? As we’ve written before, the federal government will likely need to get involved, at some point, with the deepening budgetary disasters plaguing these cities. But this involvement must be guided by the concept of relief-for-reform, in which the bankrupt cities get limited assistance in exchange for real changes to the policies that led to this mess. Those policies include, but aren’t limited to, high wages and pension promises (usually underfunded) for unionized public employees, zoning restrictions, enterprise-killing regulations, unrealistically high levels of tax combined with “exemptions” and carve-outs for crony capitalist special interests, and an overstuffed bureaucracy to give jobs to the politically well-connected.The Democrats are comfortable talking about more money for American cities, but not so much about that whole reform idea—at least, not yet.
Insufficient opportunities for graft.