City of Angels on brink of abyss

[CHIMO]

Two and a half years after the official start of the worst economic downturn and fiscal crisis in nearly 80 years, America's economy is supposedly growing again, the stock market is halfway recovered from the lows of 2008 and early 2009, and the unemployment plunge seems to have been halted.

Yet, built-in time lags in how revenues are raised and budgets calculated mean that many states and cities around the country are only now starting to feel the worst of the pain. This year has been, quite simply, abysmal for local and state governments, and next year promises to be even worse. With easy cuts long-ago made, these days basic services are increasingly seen as luxuries, and public sector employees are increasingly vulnerable to wage cuts, benefits rollbacks, and unemployment.

While the federal government has considerable wiggle room to borrow or simply increase the supply of money to help fight its way out of financial collapse, smaller government units in America don't have those options; increasingly cities, counties and states are facing the sorts of austerity measures we've come to associate with third world countries in crisis, or, in recent years, with vulnerable European nations such as Greece or Latvia.

In Arizona, a cash-pinched legislature put the Capitol building up for sale, proposing to lease it back for state use. In the small Colorado town of Colorado Springs, officials shut off half the street lamps and one-third of the traffic lights, told residents who wanted short grass in public parks to bring their own lawnmowers, and auctioned off a police helicopter on eBay. Around the country, libraries have been shuttered, after-school programmes have been curtailed, mental health services have been decimated.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/feb/25/financial-crisis-useconomy

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. What kills me is the ridiculous amount of money, hardware and

man hours spent on mowing medians that don't need it. It's a crime.

[Zoeisright]

4. Huh? That's ridiculous.

Those are jobs, paying jobs that people are working at.

What we need to do is tax the hell out of the rich and these asshole corporations that pay NO TAX AT ALL.

Getting rid of median mowing is going to make about as much difference as picking a flea off an elephant. Good god.

[Wednesdays]

5. What kills me is the ridiculous amount of money, hardware and

man hours spent on senseless wars. It's a crime.

That's a pretty big flea, wouldn't you agree? That and the bank bailouts. We gots plenty o' dough for those things...while our cities crumble and people go without health insurance.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. I'm talking about thousands, no millions of miles of median that

has 6 to 10 inches of grass. There are far better things for people to do that doesn't involve burning of diesel and the wearing out of taxpayer funded machinery than cutting imaginary grass.

[MindPilot]

8. God forbid our highways have a little landscaping

And if the grass is imaginary, you can cut it with an imaginary mower that than burns imaginary fuel and is operated by an imaginary guy earning imaginary wages. Problem solved.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. Bridges are falling down.... roads absolutely suck in many places

and we are mowing grass that isn't there... not to mention the dust storm created as an environmental plus. What I am saying is that there is better places to put tax dollars than in the toilet. If you have never witnessed medians being cut during a dry season when grass isn't growing.... you are missing the best Chinese fire drill available.

[Moostache]

2. What kills me is something different...

It kills me that we live in a country that allows the top 1% of the income earners to control >75% of the entire wealth of the nation. It kills me that we have 15-20% underemployment NATIONWIDE and some areas (and some minorities) have unemployment that tops 30% or even 50%. It further kills me that no one seems to be able or willing to make the connection that when the top tax bracket was 90%, we used that additional revenue to do something - namely build things and maintain infrastructure.

Its a crime that we suffer this indiginity of treating so many Americans as mere chattle while the economic elites continue to amass more and more wealth constantly.

The so called wasteful use of resources to maintain medians is a minor issue to me...but I am what Glenn Beck would consider a threat to America's very existence too!

[bertman]

3. Hear!! hear!! Well said, Moostache. nt

[salguine]

6. I keep saying it's time to bring back the guillotines...