President Ford caved and bailed them out, after all.
The rhetoric worked. That is why so many other cities and states-- not to mention the federal government-- have continued on with irresponsible spending, and are now facing new budget crises,
President Ford caved and bailed them out, after all.
The rhetoric worked. That is why so many other cities and states-- not to mention the federal government-- have continued on with irresponsible spending, and are now facing new budget crises, with no end in sight.
What would have happened if President Ford had stuck to his guns and not set the dangerous precedent of bailing out local irresponsibility with the taxpayers' money?
New York would have gone bankrupt. But millions of individuals and organizations go bankrupt without dropping dead.
Bankruptcy conveys the plain facts that political rhetoric tries to conceal. It tells people who depended on the bankrupt government that they can no longer depend on that bankrupt government. It tells the voters who elected that bankrupt government, with its big spending promises, that they made a bad mistake that they would be wise to avoid making again in the future.
Legally, bankruptcy wipes out commitments made to public sector unions, whose extravagant pay and pension contracts are bleeding municipal and state governments dry.
Is putting an end to political irresponsibility and legalized union racketeering dropping dead?
Politics being what it is, we are sure to hear all sorts of doomsday rhetoric at the thought of cutbacks in government spending. The poor will be starving in the streets, to hear the politicians and the media tell it.
But the amount of money it would take to keep the poor from starving in the streets is chump change compared to how much it would take to keep on feeding unions, subsidized businesses and other special interests who are robbing the taxpayers blind.
Letting armies of government employees retire in their fifties, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets.
Pouring the taxpayers' money down a thousand bottomless pits of public and private boondoggles costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets.
Bankruptcy says: "We just don't have the money." End of discussion. Bailouts say: "Give the taxpayers a little rhetoric, and a little smoke and mirrors with the book-keeping, and we can keep the party rolling."