http://tinyurl.com/3qszj2
OR
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/12081...
« Municipalities in Northeast Ohio are in serious trouble as what one area mayor calls "a perfect storm" of fiscal crises sinks city workers' jobs, blows away amenities and threatens to swamp residents with new taxes and fees.
Spiraling costs and plummeting revenues have forced towns to eliminate jobs, including police and firefighter slots in some communities, by the score. Some suburbs are raiding their piggy banks and struggling to cut their spending by 5 percent, 10 percent or more. »
I greatly enjoy the assumption made here that we citizens will have to be "swamp[ed ...] with new taxes and fees". Why? When cities were enjoying artificially high revenue from inflated property taxes from the nationwide housing bubble, where was the fiscal prudence? No, governments just spent and spent. The citizens also LET the governments spend, since they themselves were spending themselves BLIND in their deep involvement in the myth of American prosperity and wealth.
Well, economics is a greater force than propaganda. The great Rust Bowl is forming.
P.S. Within 2 years, Chris will have to re-name this site to SwampedWithTaxes.
A 'perfect storm' does not create new taxes. 'Fiscal crises' do not create new taxes.
The first place cities can look for savings is at its employees. Government today has become a plum job with better pay than private industry, duplication of job duties, little work demanded, handsome retirement benefits and health plans, and lots of vacation and sick time. I personally know some city workers and they are under no delusion that they don't have it great. They even joke about it.
I can remember when being a government employee wasn't a great deal. That all changed in the '70s when the Feds reorganized their pay structure and bloated the size of government. The states followed. This needs to change. We cannot afford it any more.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/12/12/opinion/rider/18_34_0212_11_0...
You can view government spending on all levels compared to previous years here. The states were right behind the Feds on all this stuff.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php
Another HUGE savings can be made in the area of education, which comprises a massive part of the budget. Public education really should be examined closely as being an effective tool. Probably, much of the money is wasted. Maybe, we should have another look at universal education as a concept. It's a holy and untouchable topic, but universal education doesn't seem to be working.
until Schumpeter's theory of creative deconstuction takes effect. The theory states that as an industry or organization encounters change it will either redefine itself or cease to be.
In Toledo our politicians believe we are still in an era when the automobile was king. When in fact we live in a high tech world. Failure to realizes the game is now technology will result in Toledo becoming smaller and too costly to maintain and eventually the city will deconstruct. Look northward to Detroit and you see our future.