If the money and tax base aren't there, they aren't there. This is where I find the whole pension catastrophe fascinating - what, precisely, are governments supposed to do if they cannot find the money to fund them but unions (claim they) won't negotiate for a reduction in benefits and/or pay? You can only tax people so much.
I get this. On the other hand, I get where the unions are coming from when they say none of this mess is due to anything their workers did and all they want is what they've been promised.
If the money and tax base aren't there, they aren't there. This is where I find the whole pension catastrophe fascinating - what, precisely, are governments supposed to do if they cannot find the money to fund them but unions (claim they) won't negotiate for a reduction in benefits and/or pay? You can only tax people so much.
I get this. On the other hand, I get where the unions are coming from when they say none of this mess is due to anything their workers did and all they want is what they've been promised.
I actually wasn't arguing the merits one way or the other with that particular comment, just observing that I find the entire conundrum interesting because there is no good resolution.
IIRC, I recently read an article about a local government in Rhode Island that managed to negotiate with its union(s) in a relatively non-contentious way and worked things out in a manner that spreads the pain evenly. Naturally my feeble brain cannot recall precisely where in RI this was. ETA: Google is not being my friend this morning. All I remember from the article was that basically the mayor had a meeting with union leaders, opened all the books, and said, You know where I stand, now tell me how YOU think we should fix this. When confronted with the actual numbers, the union realized that everyone was against the wall and walla, successful negiotiation.
Post by copzgirl1171 on Jul 11, 2012 7:32:29 GMT -5
I do not understand "missing" money maybe it's because I have a fear of knitting shaws for Martha Stewart but three years just makes me shake my head. OTOH this mayor will be forced to lay because the union is going to skin him alive.
Fun times ahead for Scranton the state will move in on them now.
Let me guess - said mayor did not reduce his own pay to minimum wage, did he?
No idea. I'm about to go hunting to see why the city is in such a mess. Unless someone here knows?
I should probably finish reading posts to see if someone answered this for you... but I feel like replying first.
I'm in PA, not far from Scranton. A few cities and towns are casualties of the steel industry going belly-up. Scranton, Bethlehem and Steelton are the ones that I'm close to.
They're bad. When I have to go to Steelton, I do the oh-so-obvious door lock, windows up, music down, look straight ahead maneuver. Unfortunately, H has quite a bit of family still living in Steelton and one of his uncles is a retired Steelton cop, so we're there more often than I'd like.
Fun times ahead for Scranton the state will move in on them now.
Dood, the state just had to take over Harrisburg a few months ago. I doubt there's a whole lot that can be done for Scranton when the damn capital is going belly-up.
If the money and tax base aren't there, they aren't there. This is where I find the whole pension catastrophe fascinating - what, precisely, are governments supposed to do if they cannot find the money to fund them but unions (claim they) won't negotiate for a reduction in benefits and/or pay? You can only tax people so much.
I get this. On the other hand, I get where the unions are coming from when they say none of this mess is due to anything their workers did and all they want is what they've been promised.
And that's really politicians' fault for promising things that could not be delivered upon long-term and frankly, unions for demanding more than they could legitimately expect. You're right, it's not the fault of the workers, a promise is a promise, so they were not thinking "hey - I'm promised this but how is this really going to work in this area." However, we are seeing more and more of this in local government, and we are going to see more of it at the state and federal levels. The whole damn country is busted-ass broke.
A city like Scranton (and all of Northeastern Pa - I grew-up there so I'm familiar as well), is near destitute. Nobody will loan that city enough money to get out of this. And for those who say "well, it will have to raise taxes" - aside from the fact that property doesn't cost much to beging with, Scranton has a 9.2% unemployment rate and 24% of the city's population lives below the poverty line (and that's before they did this min wage thing). So who are you going to tax? There really isn't anyone to tax. I'd venture a guess to say those public workers were probably top earners in that area before this - they don't have a whole lot of 1-percenters setting-up shop in Scranton, Pa.
Fun times ahead for Scranton the state will move in on them now.
Dood, the state just had to take over Harrisburg a few months ago. I doubt there's a whole lot that can be done for Scranton when the damn capital is going belly-up.
PA as a whole is screwed. It sucks here.
The state actually told them when it became apparent how bad things were that they were on their own and to figure it out. Now maybe they were bluffing...but maybe not.
I really think the mayor is doing the best he can with a shittastic situation. (whether he could have done more in the lead up...I dunno) They can't get a loan without a plan to pay it back, and the council won't let him raise taxes, so they can't come up with a plan to pay a new loan back. So no money.
A city like Scranton (and all of Northeastern Pa - I grew-up there so I'm familiar as well), is near destitute. Nobody will loan that city enough money to get out of this. And for those who say "well, it will have to raise taxes" - aside from the fact that property doesn't cost much to beging with, Scranton has a 9.2% unemployment rate and 24% of the city's population lives below the poverty line (and that's before they did this min wage thing). So who are you going to tax? There really isn't anyone to tax. I'd venture a guess to say those public workers were probably top earners in that area before this - they don't have a whole lot of 1-percenters setting-up shop in Scranton, Pa.
This is just how cities die. Sad, but you're right - Scranton is not going to recoup money by raising taxes on people who don't earn that much.
Dood, the state just had to take over Harrisburg a few months ago. I doubt there's a whole lot that can be done for Scranton when the damn capital is going belly-up.
PA as a whole is screwed. It sucks here.
The state actually told them when it became apparent how bad things were that they were on their own and to figure it out. Now maybe they were bluffing...but maybe not.
I really think the mayor is doing the best he can with a shittastic situation. (whether he could have done more in the lead up...I dunno) They can't get a loan without a plan to pay it back, and the council won't let him raise taxes, so they can't come up with a plan to pay a new loan back. So no money.
For the second paragraph, I'm guessing you're talking about Scranton... for that, yeah, I agree. Scranton (among other cities and towns in PA) is in a very bad way. People are moving out, property is worth next to nothing, there's a high level of below poverty level residents. It's just bad. I mean, when there's no money, you just do what you have to do.
For the first paragraph, I can't tell if you're referring to Hbg or Scranton. The state did take over Hbg. So far, there have been two lawsuits on whether or not it's constitutional for the state to take over the capital when it's not doing the same thing for every other financially troubled municipalities. The first suit was thrown out. The other suit is only a few weeks old, so we'll have to wait and see on that one. But is seems that Corbett (PA Gov.) wants the takeover to remain. www.whptv.com/news/local/story/State-takeover-of-Harrisburg-gets-2nd-lawsuit/vvZSwqIctU6nNilkteU6IA.cspx
The state actually told them when it became apparent how bad things were that they were on their own and to figure it out. Now maybe they were bluffing...but maybe not.
I really think the mayor is doing the best he can with a shittastic situation. (whether he could have done more in the lead up...I dunno) They can't get a loan without a plan to pay it back, and the council won't let him raise taxes, so they can't come up with a plan to pay a new loan back. So no money.
For the second paragraph, I'm guessing you're talking about Scranton... for that, yeah, I agree. Scranton (among other cities and towns in PA) is in a very bad way. People are moving out, property is worth next to nothing, there's a high level of below poverty level residents. It's just bad. I mean, when there's no money, you just do what you have to do.
For the first paragraph, I can't tell if you're referring to Hbg or Scranton. The state did take over Hbg. So far, there have been two lawsuits on whether or not it's constitutional for the state to take over the capital when it's not doing the same thing for every other financially troubled municipalities. The first suit was thrown out. The other suit is only a few weeks old, so we'll have to wait and see on that one. But is seems that Corbett (PA Gov.) wants the takeover to remain. www.whptv.com/news/local/story/State-takeover-of-Harrisburg-gets-2nd-lawsuit/vvZSwqIctU6nNilkteU6IA.cspx
Not referring to either - just a general statement. Many cities and states are dealing with severe debt and deficit issues just like the federal government - but they don't have the same options for temporarily delaying the fall-out.
The state actually told them when it became apparent how bad things were that they were on their own and to figure it out. Now maybe they were bluffing...but maybe not.
I really think the mayor is doing the best he can with a shittastic situation. (whether he could have done more in the lead up...I dunno) They can't get a loan without a plan to pay it back, and the council won't let him raise taxes, so they can't come up with a plan to pay a new loan back. So no money.
For the second paragraph, I'm guessing you're talking about Scranton... for that, yeah, I agree. Scranton (among other cities and towns in PA) is in a very bad way. People are moving out, property is worth next to nothing, there's a high level of below poverty level residents. It's just bad. I mean, when there's no money, you just do what you have to do.
For the first paragraph, I can't tell if you're referring to Hbg or Scranton. The state did take over Hbg. So far, there have been two lawsuits on whether or not it's constitutional for the state to take over the capital when it's not doing the same thing for every other financially troubled municipalities. The first suit was thrown out. The other suit is only a few weeks old, so we'll have to wait and see on that one. But is seems that Corbett (PA Gov.) wants the takeover to remain. www.whptv.com/news/local/story/State-takeover-of-Harrisburg-gets-2nd-lawsuit/vvZSwqIctU6nNilkteU6IA.cspx
And that's really politicians' fault for promising things that could not be delivered upon long-term and frankly, unions for demanding more than they could legitimately expect. You're right, it's not the fault of the workers, a promise is a promise, so they were not thinking "hey - I'm promised this but how is this really going to work in this area." However, we are seeing more and more of this in local government, and we are going to see more of it at the state and federal levels. The whole damn country is busted-ass broke.
Totally agree. This is one of the slimy aspects of politics - politicians get to make all sorts of promises that don't come due until they are well out of office, thus leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.
Anyone can promise a boatload of money 25 years from now - who's to say that our economy won't be humming along and we'll all be earning a solid 47% on our savings every year, hmmm? Maybe aliens will land and train us in new technology that will make every American - and no one else - a billionaire. Or perhaps China will unexpectedly and voluntarily jack its currency valuation to three times the dollar.
The worst part is that despite knowing better, this sort of nonsense continues. It's a monumental struggle for states to slap realistic rates of return on public pensions because none of the current workers want to have to contribute more to their own retirement funds and no politican has the guts to tell voting public employees that allowing that final year of earnings, which often includes an insane amount of overtime for the purpose of jacking the employees' pension rates, can't dictate their pensions, particularly when you have employees retiring at 55 and living for another 30 years.
This whole situation is fascinating in the way that watching a terrible car wreck might be.
For the second paragraph, I'm guessing you're talking about Scranton... for that, yeah, I agree. Scranton (among other cities and towns in PA) is in a very bad way. People are moving out, property is worth next to nothing, there's a high level of below poverty level residents. It's just bad. I mean, when there's no money, you just do what you have to do.
For the first paragraph, I can't tell if you're referring to Hbg or Scranton.
I was referring to scranton for both.
In that case... I agree on both counts.
I can't see the state agreeing to fork over money to save Scranton. There's really not much of anything up there that would be an asset to the state to justify bailing them out.
So, until the town just gets flushed down the terlet completely, the mayor just has to do what he can.
Crappy position to be in. But it's not like he didn't know that when he got elected into office.
Post by karinothing on Jul 11, 2012 10:23:24 GMT -5
So, i actually find this kind of fascinating. If no one is going to loan them the money, can they file for bankruptcy and start again. Or woudl the city just die off like many of you are suggesting? Isn't Scranton kind of large?
I don't see an easy answer for this. What else have they done? Cut back on garbage collection? Street lights? City services?
Based on my googling - They closed a couple of firehouses, they've closed the city pools, cutting garbage collection was at least talked about, but i'm not sure if they actually cut that.
The city needs to either: a) make "Parade Day" no less than 2x annually. The city is flush with drunks spending cash in the name of St. Patrick. OR b) sell the whole thing to the Jesuits that run UofS
Honestly, this is really sad. I did some GOTV efforts up there a few years ago and the area on the whole is depressed. They are good people, there just isn't much going on in the way of industry and no viable plan to improve it. DH's cousin goes to UofS, I wonder if any of this will affect the school.
I don't see an easy answer for this. What else have they done? Cut back on garbage collection? Street lights? City services?
Based on my googling - They closed a couple of firehouses, they've closed the city pools, cutting garbage collection was at least talked about, but i'm not sure if they actually cut that.
I'm not sure what else.
Is garbage collection a normal city activity? I wonder what would happen if they privatized it. Everything in my city is through private vendors.
There is more impact to the streets/wear and tear, but in the short run it would save the city money.
Talk about a real life, yet smaller scale, scenario of how the national economy could end up - if, that is, we weren't able to print money or borrow from other countries to pretend the problem away.
Apparently, Scranton was super corrupt for a long time. Stealing money corrupt. There are FBI guys who actually bought houses there, because they've been there so long and are likely to be there so long, working the investigation.
I would guess they have to lay a ton of people off.
Indeed. I haven't read any follow-up articles on this issue, but my guess is that the mayor chose to slash salaries rather than lay people off because it was the lesser of two evils - everyone keeps their job - while also something he could apply to himself to eliminate accusations that he wasn't suffering along with the rest of the workforce.
If the money and tax base aren't there, they aren't there. This is where I find the whole pension catastrophe fascinating - what, precisely, are governments supposed to do if they cannot find the money to fund them but unions (claim they) won't negotiate for a reduction in benefits and/or pay? You can only tax people so much.
my thoughts exactly. And, I'm not sure how we ever got to a place where a union can promise it's members something that is generally not available to the rest of the working public. I do think that people that need union protection need it for a reason. I certainly don't want fire fighters, police officers, teachers, etc. being treated worse than the average private sector worker. But, I don't think that they should be promised anything because times change.
Apparently, Scranton was super corrupt for a long time. Stealing money corrupt. There are FBI guys who actually bought houses there, because they've been there so long and are likely to be there so long, working the investigation.
Talk about a real life, yet smaller scale, scenario of how the national economy could end up - if, that is, we weren't able to print money or borrow from other countries to pretend the problem away.
I feel like we have a lot of options available on a national level, we are just not willing to take them. This sounds like there is no viable alternative in sight.