Poll: Do You Favor Bailing Out Detroit?

Captain Adverse said:

LOL It's only a fanatasy for people who refuse to accept responsibility. People who take responsibility take action and save themselves; those who don't end up watching flood waters rise, then drown waiting for rescue.

Who lives in the world of fantasy? Those who act, or those who can act but prefer to beg for help? Or maybe those who make excuses for those who refuse to act?

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Single mothers working 2 & 3 jobs to keep a roof over their families heads and food on the table are great examples of personal responsibility.
Women who want to responsibility for making their own health choices are great examples of personal responsibility.
Here's an example of a woman begging for help:


Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) were not happy with Sister Simone Campbell's request for government assistance in helping the poor
What’s more, Ribble’s willingness to shirk governmental responsibility echoed the sentiment of other Republican members at the hearing who looked down on the poor. In his opening statement, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed that in America, “If you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead.” Ryan’s comments, combined with Ribble’s, invoked an old conservative stereotype of the lazy, unemployed welfare recipient, living off of government funding instead of working for her family’s wellbeing. Under their logic, those who receive welfare—or faith-based social justice charities that ask for government assistance—are just not working hard enough.
Campbell shot back, “Justice comes before charity… Everyone has a right to eat, and therefore there is a governmental responsibility to ensure everyone’s capacity to eat. Love and care makes a difference, but the issues are so big there isn’t sufficient charitable dollars there.”

Indeed, by placing the responsibility of social welfare on the Catholic church, Ribble ignored the federal government’s long history of working with faith groups to help guarantee equal protection and economic mobility for all Americans. Catholic Charities, for example, is one of the largest charities in the country, and gets over half of its operating budget from federal funds. Yet even with this support, the combined efforts of Catholic Charities and various other faith-based groups don’t even come close to meeting the demand of America’s impoverished, including the four out of 5 U.S. adults who struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or relying on welfare for at least parts of their lives.
In reality, Ryan and Ribble’s image of the poor ignores the 68 percent of children

CanadaJohn said:

Do you have any evidence at all of any extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters or infrastructure catastrophes that hit the city so hard that they could not handle them in the budget year?.

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haymarket said:

I would be happy to see evidence that the voters of Detroit chose the wrong people and they are responsible for the problems.

I concede readily that government of Detroit certainly played a role in all this. No doubt about it. These financial problems should have been dealt with a long time ago.

But having conceded that it is irrelevant to two much larger problems which killed Detroit:

1- loss of 2/3 of the City population and the jobs and tax base that went with it,
2- extreme racial polarization which led to Detroit being a city of mostly poor black people far less educated and far older than most other surrounding communities with far better resources.

If city government had some magic solution for those problems and they simply mismanaged its proper application, I am not aware of it. And I live right here in SE Michigan.

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It is not just the voters, but the voters hold responsibility as well, they did choose, and I am sorry if this offends, too bad it needs said, they chose Democrats who tend not to be fiscally sound in their thinking nor performance. I have not studied Detroit, but would suggest that there were, as many have mentioned here, giveaways, handouts, wrong messages being sent so that certain people would be elected to continue the minimal gravy train. Do you have vouchers there, where parents can choose the school they want and have the money that is allotted each student follow? Is there strict enforcement of laws to keep things clean and organized? Are the operations of the city well maintained with people of competence and not political appointees without knowledge manning those posts?

Why did 2/3s of the people leave? Why did the jobs leave? As stated previously, unions did a wonderful job of pricing their members out of the global marketplace. If a corporation, whose main job is to make a profit so they can survive, is put at such a disadvantage by having to pay higher and ever higher wages, high benefits, high pensions and unions who do not work with mangagement oftentimes so as to put out a better if not the very best product, but rather in an adversarial position to the point where the corporation becomes inclined to seek a more congenial and prosperous venue elsewhere from which to conduct business... whose fault is that?

What created the racial polarization? If you drive your tax base away due to racial friction leaving just the poor there, maybe they should rethink how strident their positions are, how far they are willing to push things and what the consequences of those decisions and what the benefits of other decisions might be. I am not accusing anybody or any side of anything...just saying if you drive people away, maybe you should have made the proper concessions prior, cause look what you are left with now?

Every city looking at trouble in the USA should be rethinking right now. if they don't, and do not work to resolve the problems now, sorry...too bad soo sad...

CanadaJohn said:

When did I say any such thing?

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Um, if you are arguing for bankruptcy...you are.

If you are arguing that the city should have foreseen for the massive decline in jobs/property values/increased unemployment that happened in the last 4 years ( a very real disaster) while still needing to maintain city services, then you ought to lend them your crystal ball.

Gaugingcatenate said:

It is not just the voters, but the voters hold responsibility as well, they did choose, and I am sorry if this offends, too bad it needs said, they chose Democrats who tend not to be fiscally sound in their thinking nor performance. I have not studied Detroit, but would suggest that there were, as many have mentioned here, giveaways, handouts, wrong messages being sent so that certain people would be elected to continue the minimal gravy train. Do you have vouchers there, where parents can choose the school they want and have the money that is allotted each student follow? Is there strict enforcement of laws to keep things clean and organized? Are the operations of the city well maintained with people of competence and not political appointees without knowledge manning those posts?

Why did 2/3s of the people leave? Why did the jobs leave? As stated previously, unions did a wonderful job of pricing their members out of the global marketplace. If a corporation, whose main job is to make a profit so they can survive, is put at such a disadvantage by having to pay higher and ever higher wages, high benefits, high pensions and unions who do not work with mangagement oftentimes so as to put out a better if not the very best product, but rather in an adversarial position to the point where the corporation becomes inclined to seek a more congenial and prosperous venue elsewhere from which to conduct business... whose fault is that?

What created the racial polarization? If you drive your tax base away due to racial friction leaving just the poor there, maybe they should rethink how strident their positions are, how far they are willing to push things and what the consequences of those decisions and what the benefits of other decisions might be. I am not accusing anybody or any side of anything...just saying if you drive people away, maybe you should have made the proper concessions prior, cause look what you are left with now?

Every city looking at trouble in the USA should be rethinking right now. if they don't, and do not work to resolve the problems now, sorry...too bad soo sad...

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North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory campaigned on the claim he would not support new laws restricting abortion, but guess what? He signed a new set of abortion restrictions attached to a motorcycle safety bill.
Cookies anyone?

CanadaJohn said:

Do you acknowledge that the residents of Detroit elected their city government?

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Some did . Some did not. Some did not live there when various administrations were elected. Some who did are gone. Some were not even born then.



Do you acknowledge that the city government in Detroit had authority and responsibility for establishing yearly budgets and generating the revenues to support those budgets and expenditures?

To a point. How does one generate needed revenues when 2/3 of the population has left and taken the jobs and tax base with it but the city is still the same size?

Do you acknowledge that the city government in Detroit entered into collective agreements with their city employees over the past 50 years, signing off on all improvements in wages and benefits contained in those agreements?

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Yes they did. And we have seen no evidence offered by you nor anyone else that those agreements had anything wrong with them. So by itself, your question and my answer says nothing incriminating.

Do you acknowledge that if the city government runs a deficit in a particular year, it is their sworn oath responsibility to account for that deficit in the next year and to ensure it isn't replicated in the next year?

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The city borrows money - just like the State and the Federal government does.

Do you have any evidence at all of any extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters or infrastructure catastrophes that hit the city so hard that they could not handle them in the budget year?

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Yes. A loss of 2/3 of your population is probably worse than a one time natural disaster.
Yes. A loss of your good paying manufacturing jobs is probably worse than a one time natural disaster.
Yes, the failure of the State of Michigan to make good on its commitment for annual revenue sharing revenues in return for Detroit lowering its taxes is the equal of a natural disaster.

Bottom line, the current city government of Detroit may not be specifically responsible for all of Detroit's problems but all of the city governments of Detroit over the past 50 years are collectively responsible and all those governments were freely elected and reelected by the residents of Detroit.

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First, the slide began some 60 years ago - not 50.
Second, the people you want to hold responsible are not there to take responsibility as most are dead and gone.

So, yes, the people of Detroit are responsible for their mess

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As you can see by the answers to your own questions, that is not so clear cut as you would have us believe.

ttwtt78640 said:

Actually the recent case of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, TX is a good example. FEMA help was denied, rightly, as it was a man caused disaster. If all big blue cities are now free to promise things far in excess of what their local tax base can support, declare a "woops" and then get tossed a pile of federal cash to "make things right" that amounts to taxation without representation. Those outside of Detriot had no say in the terrible decisions made leading up to the collapse, so why should they have any responsibility for the results?

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YOu act as if the remaining population in Detroit voted for this? Half of Detroit was not even alive in the first thirty years of the slide when half the population had left and took the manufacturing jobs and tax base with it. The people who were responsible for that are pretty much dead and gone.

YOu say that those outside Detroit had no say in Detroit which is not entirely true. Detroit lost over 1.1 million people. Where do you think they went to? Most went to surrounding suburbs. So many suburbanites who did have a say in Detroit are not gone elsewhere.

haymarket said:

You falsely assume that the people living in those places do so with no knowledge of the risks and problems. Which is simply not the case..... at least for very long.



When the right rants and raves, whines and cries about unions and high wages, I rarely if ever see the evidence of this allegation. Do you have that to provide for Detroit?

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Not assuming anything. I live in a place that occasionally gets tornadoes and hurricanes. My premiums went up after our last big bout with the suckers... I am not asking you to pay my insurance premium. I got T-boned by a guy driving a rental whose insurance didnt cover him... I had to cover most my loss myself... I didn't expect haymarket to bail me out. You are welcome to if you want however.

You only have to look at the marketplace, supply and demand to see the evidence of too high wages, etc... how are wages and jobs in Detroit nowadays [ just rhetorical, we know how they are ] ? Come on, don't act like you don't know. Who or what then, to you, is/are responsible for the disaster of Detroit? Was it just a whim that led jobs away... just happenstance, the bad luck of the draw...or was it something else?

Gaugingcatenate said:

Not assuming anything. I live in a place that occasionally gets tornadoes and hurricanes. My premiums went up after our last big bout with the suckers... I am not asking you to pay my insurance premium. I got T-boned by a guy driving a rental whose insurance didnt cover him... I had to cover most my loss myself... I didn't expect haymarket to bail me out. You are welcome to if you want however.

You only have to look at the marketplace, supply and demand to see the evidence of too high wages, etc... how are wages and jobs in Detroit nowadays [ just rhetorical, we know how they are ] ? Come on, don't act like you don't know. Who or what then, to you, is/are responsible for the disaster of Detroit? Was it just a whim that led jobs away... just happenstance, the bad luck of the draw...or was it something else?

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But we all do help each other. Do you know what donor states are? they are states which contribute far more in federal taxes than they ever get back. Recipient states are those like New Mexico where they get back twice what they contribute. We all help each other in the USA.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/why-do-some-states-feast-federal-spending-not-others

btw - Michigan gets back only 85 cents on the dollar for what we pay in.

What is your point in asking me about wages in Detroit?

LowDown said:

Come on liberals. Ya'll need to get behind this in a big way

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I was born in Detroit about 70 years ago.I'm very glad that I got out of there.

I saw that Detroit was going downhill and I got out of there in 1967, probably the best move that I have made in my life.

I totally support not bailing out Detroit. The city of Detroit and the state of Michigan need to clean up that mess. They made the mess, let them clean it up. It will be a valuable learning process for everyone involved.

greyhat said:

Perhaps not, but it's part of life; unfortunately that's how finance works.

The pensioners will receive thru the PGBC a portion of their income up to about $60k a year for those 65+ and reduced amounts for younger ones. That is already law since 1974 (ERISA) and updated in 2006 (PPA). It could be worst: they could get zero. So we've taken care of the pensioners already.
We don't need to bailout Detroit to help them.

What does GS have to do with anything?

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I wasn't talking about a complete bailout, only protection for people who fulfilled their end of the agreement and should get what's owed.

GS has to do with this for the fact that the Government bailed them out which if they didn't their losses wouldn't have bankrupted them. They're the ones the "That's life in finance" conversation should be had with, not pensioners. They're also a private entity which received tax payer funds. Makes little sense to give tax payer i.e. public funds to a private entity and not to a public one.

Again, I am all for the city to lay in its own filth, but mismanagement on the part of the politicians shouldn't mean that rank and file employees of the city should have to suffer. You know the upper echelon won't, they'll find their golden parachute. I'm saying don't let them, and instead give it to who fulfilled their obligations. It would be nice if a GOPer was the point man on this, it would go a long way...

jimbo said:

Detroit mismanagement was the fault of those living there, including those with unfunded pensions. Even if not, it was certainly not my fault. Let them figure it out on their own, or not.

I feel the same way about Goldman Sachs, AIG, GM and Chrysler. and the banks.

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right, but we already gave them our money... I'd challenge the fact that it was the pensioners fault. I live in IL, voted against every dink in office, there mismanagement is my fault? The fault of the entire State outside Crook County? No.

0bserver92 said:

We don't want it.

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I don't blame you...

haymarket said:

But we all do help each other. Do you know what donor states are? they are states which contribute far more in federal taxes than they ever get back. Recipient states are those like New Mexico where they get back twice what they contribute. We all help each other in the USA.

Why Do Some States Feast on Federal Spending, Not Others? | Tax Foundation


btw - Michigan gets back only 85 cents on the dollar for what we pay in.

What is your point in asking me about wages in Detroit?

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Listen, I hear ya. We are all Americans here. I am just of the mind that we have for too long allowed people to abuse and mismanage their situations. We no longer have the convenience to just ingore all these problems, to just throw money that we don't have at problems that some have gotten themselves into due to mismanagement. Gotta do something for yourself. When you do that you learn and feel better about what you have done. If we just bail you out, what have you learned?

My point is that Detroit priced themselves out of the global wage market, people who had skills obviously realized that, moved to where there are jobs, maybe lower paying jobs but at the same time maybe with better, less violent schools, less crime in general, less racial polarization, etc... now Detroit has low skilled workers and no work. Maybe should have thought about all that before driving most the good work away?

Makes ya wonder.

No, I don't favor bailing out Detroit. If the government of Detroit is insolvent, then it should declare bankruptcy.

lolabird said:

Single mothers working 2 & 3 jobs to keep a roof over their families heads and food on the table are great examples of personal responsibility....yadda yadda...blah blah...

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And not a thing having to do with the issue in this thread. I will not be sidetracked.

Detroit does not deserve to be bailed out. They are capable of handling their own problems, as capable as that hard-working mother you keep going on about.

molten_dragon said:

While I understand the point you're trying to make, it falls kind of flat when you consider how many hard working people at those large corporations would have lost their jobs had they gone under.

As to the point in the OP, I'm kind of torn. On the one hand, I don't think it's right that people may lose their pensions. On the other, I think it's more likely the people running detroit will learn a lesson from going through bankruptcy.

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"Falling flat" is a strong word. Falters a bit, maybe.

I was born in Detroit...

Thank god my parents had the good sense to move out while it was still in its heyday. That being said, while one can see your sarcasm as it drips in globs down on your tie, I do not believe in bailing anybody, or any entity, out when they self inflict by not making the hard decisions you need to be making along the way in order to arrive at that better ending. Detroit is just a canary in the cave regarding the unsustainable. We can also look across the pond at Europe. If we continue making bad decisions, keep spending money we do not have on things government has no business... well, I do not think there will be anybody bailing us out when we misstep on that precipice... and we will have deserved it knowing what we do now... with such vivid examples right before our very eyes.

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Personal preferences don't really matter.

As a nation, not bailing out Detroit when we bailed out the banks says something. People and their pensions aren't as important as executives and the businesses they ran into the ground. Conventions of a capitalist society like "paying for the mistakes you made" only count when you're an ordinary, working person.

Captain Adverse said:

And not a thing having to do with the issue in this thread. I will not be sidetracked.

Detroit does not deserve to be bailed out. They are capable of handling their own problems, as capable as that hard-working mother you keep going on about.

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In case no other woman has told you this, "I don't subscribe to your rhetoric." Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

We should not bail out *ANYTHING*. Actions have consequences. Failure is the result of bad decisions. Those who make bad decisions deserve to fail.

Captain Adverse said:

And not a thing having to do with the issue in this thread. I will not be sidetracked.

Detroit does not deserve to be bailed out. They are capable of handling their own problems, as capable as that hard-working mother you keep going on about.

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and what if Detroit financial troubles causes it to fail and drags the entire country down with it?

Unitedwestand13 said:

and what if Detroit financial troubles causes it to fail and drags the entire country down with it?

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It can't do that if nobody but Detroit is responsible for it's own failure. The only way it can drag the entire country down is if they force Michigan to cover Detroit's failure and when Michigan fails, forcing the United States federal government to cover the failure of both.

lolabird said:

In case no other woman has told you this, "I don't subscribe to your rhetoric." Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

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I don't smoke, it's bad for your health.

I wasn't using "rhetoric," I was adressing an issue that concerns me honestly, directly, and rationally. However, you were avoiding the issue and attempting to use logical fallacies to sway emotion and shift direction from the point. I called you on it, and this is how you respond.

Your inability to provide a rational argument in support of your position is no reason to make this personal. It's just a debate.

On one hand, we bailed out too big to fail corporations...who, to a lesser extent, are responsible for some of Detroits hardships. NOT bailing out Detroit then sends a certain message, don't you think?

And sure, many of you will say you were against the bailouts...but that fact is, those bailouts happened.


I will support a bailout of Detroit if her leaders are required to file personal bankruptcy, and auction off some of their luxuries to help pay off some of their obligations.

Captain Adverse said:

I don't smoke, it's bad for your health.

I wasn't using "rhetoric," I was adressing an issue that concerns me honestly, directly, and rationally. However, you were avoiding the issue and attempting to use logical fallacies to sway emotion and shift direction from the point. I called you on it, and this is how you respond.

Your inability to provide a rational argument in support of your position is no reason to make this personal. It's just a debate.

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It was a metaphor.
You need to calm down and realize that not all people think as you do.
And stop trying to goad me. It's very off-putting.

Captain Adverse said:

Innocent? Who VOTED those "greed-suckers" into office? Take some responsibility. That's one of the problems with our current society, no one accepts any responsibility for the negative results of things they helped create.

I've watched some of the "documentaries" about Detroit, showing town hall meetings. All I saw was people crying "gimme gimme gimme" while the government representatives kept saying "we don't have the tax base anymore." No compromise, no solutions, just a lot of demands.

Well, you made your bed now lie in it! Or else get up and out of it and REMAKE it. Very simple, facing reality and dealing with it.

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The politicians who get elected are the ones who promise the world, even if the world is not deliverable. As long as the people keep insisting on getting the world, things will not change. And I don't mean just in Detroit, I mean all over the country. Detroit is just one of the first, and so far biggest, domino to fall.