- Bill Nojay, Former COO of Detroit’s Department of Transportation
Detroit, the former “Paris
of the West” is now oozing blight, rust, decay, garbage, and union corruption.
It is now a pathetic example of its former greatness, the city of the auto industry,
envied around the world, the city of a thriving middle class.
At the height of its
glory, Detroit was America’s fourth largest city with almost 2 million people.
After decades of population flight, there are 700,000 people left. Police
response to an emergency call is 58 minutes, street lights are cut in half, and
the median home price is $9,000, with some homes worth as little as $500. It
seems like a bargain if the city will ever be rebuilt. Its location is
certainly strategic, with access to the Great Lakes. There are interests in the
heavy rail industry and there are plans for a $25 million light rail.
The statistics are sad. Thirty
percent of Detroit’s 140 square miles are vacant or deserted; 33,500 homes are unoccupied
and 90,000 lots are vacant. Many homes have been bulldozed. If a lone home is occupied
on an otherwise abandoned street, the residents are forced to move and the
house is demolished. Sixty percent of children live in poverty. Homicide rose
79% in 2011. There is no chain supermarket left in the city.
Detroit is a classic
example of failed obamunism and personal responsibility; it played out the union-controlled
socialism to the bitter end and it lost the destructive game - eventually all socialists
run out of other people’s money as Margaret Thatcher used to say. Detroit is
now a picture of litter and filth with few suburbs left that take pride in
their appearance. Pontiac and Flint are not far behind in their march towards insolvency.
There are 61 counties and
municipalities currently in the U.S. who have filed for bankruptcy or will follow
in the footsteps of Detroit, the largest municipality to fail in a string of
more to come.
The administration’s Cap
and Trade policies will de-industrialize our country, bankrupting so much of
the coal industry that generates electricity, devastating businesses and
individuals alike in the process, and causing more cities and counties to fail.
Many executive orders signed
under every presidency since Bush Sr. (1992) implemented the United Nations
Agenda 21. Through green zones, stacking people in high rise, mixed-use
apartments in approved corridors, the Wildlands map, Smart Growth,
Sustainability, environmentalism gone amuck which claims to save the planet
from a manufactured global warming, will cause abject poverty in many other places.
There were many reasons
why Detroit failed:
-
union control and
collective bargaining
-
automatic union
deductions funds; public unions block any meaningful reforms and help elect
local officials who are sympathetic to unions and who in turn negotiate the
union members’ salaries and benefits
-
public employee
unions corruption (pension abuse such as “spiking” pensions with excess
overtime during the last year of employment; claiming disability in the last
year before retirement; contracts with much earlier retirements than the
private sector)
-
nobody is
terminated for incompetence if they belong to a union
-
use of union dues
to support Democrat coffers with or without employee approval
-
non-stop Democrat
control of the city since 1961
-
out of control corruption
-
citizens
re-electing the same individuals who actually did jail time for their crimes
-
lack of personal
responsibility and work ethic
-
job losses in the
auto industry
-
decades of
population flight
-
race riots in the
late sixties and early seventies
-
environmental and
health warfare
-
diminished tax
base following the population exodus
-
the failure of the
federal government to protect our manufacturers
-
the main stream
media misinforming low information voters
-
bank deregulation
and capital flight
-
closings of
catholic schools in the 1970s
-
racial tensions exacerbated
by Coleman Young
-
purposeful
segregated areas in town by various black mayors
-
lack of
collection of property taxes (50% collection rate) and enforcement of
non-payers
-
distorted
Christian values
-
burdensome additional
utility, sales, and property taxes extracted from the poorest of the poor
instituted by Mayor Cavanaugh (an additional 3 percent)
Detroit is the most
race-conscious city in America. Blacks have been told for so many years that
white men are the reason for their economic plight therefore they blame white
people for their problems. The culture of drug dealing and drug use dominate
the inner-city. Single parent households have replaced fathers with the nanny
state. Government welfare enabled women to procreate and survive while making
fathers obsolete.
Children are prescribed
Ritalin when it is not really necessary, adults are over-prescribed
anti-depressants, and their diets are poor. Is it any surprise that people are
left confused and unable to make proper decisions, especially when they are
lied to by the MSM?
The two-thirds majority in
Congress carries the blame for voting for NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, and bank
deregulation, for enabling the manufacturing exodus to other countries in
search for cheaper labor. Over-demanding union contracts shipped more jobs to
right to work states, diluting the tax base even more.
NAFTA, the North American
Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico, and U.S., passed in January 1,
1994, and CAFTA, Central America Free Trade Agreement, an extension of NAFTA, passed
through U.S. House of Representatives by one vote in the middle of the night
and signed by Congress on July 27, 2005, “caused the race to the bottom in
labor.”
In the Chapter 9 bankruptcy
court documents, bankruptcy which was allowed to proceed, half of the city’s
liabilities are in pension plans and retiree health care costs. These benefits
were negotiated by unions on behalf of their constituents.
Steven Rattner of the New
York Times argues that we have to bail out Detroit and tries to make the case
that the “700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible
for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and
eventually Congress decided to help them. America is just as much about aiding
those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility.”
I happen to disagree
because Hurricane Sandy was a sudden act of nature, totally out of anybody’s
control, whereas Detroit’s problems were exclusively man-made over many decades
of corrupt mismanagement. Many issues could have been addressed and avoided at
the voting booth and through personal responsibility.
He further argues that the
“shared sacrifice by creditors, workers, and other stakeholders” in the General
Motor and Chrysler auto “rescue” should be maintained in rescuing Detroit. I
would argue that he is comparing apples and oranges.
First, the auto rescue was
not a “shared sacrifice,” it was a forced government reimbursement of
stockholders of 29 cents on the dollar to the benefit of union interests,
setting aside capitalist contract law and the prior claim of bondholders.
Second, the rest of the
country should not have to “sacrifice” for the irresponsible behavior of Detroit
unions, union members, politicians, mayors, and the lack of responsibility of Detroit
citizens at the ballot box who thought that it was a good idea to keep in power
the same corrupt Democrats since 1961.
Americans were not and are
not in favor of bailing out General Motors, which is now investing more
taxpayer dollars into job creation, factories, ventures, research, and
dealerships in China rather than the U.S., and Chrysler, which is now an
Italian-controlled corporation. Likewise, the majority of hard-working Americans
are not in favor of bailing out Detroit nor California.
Further reading:
Who Killed Detroit City
and Why? By Dave Hodges, Activist Post
We Have to Step In and
Save Detroit, Steven Rattner, The New York TimesThe Public Union vs. the Public (Philip Howard, founder of Common Good)
http://bit.ly/13Xllat
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