Let Detroit and the rest of Michigan's brokest cities go bankrupt

The emergency financial manager approach is clearly just too fraught with politics and brinksmanship and the governor and the legislature (both past and present) simply lack the fortitude to stand up to the charges of undemocratic meddling in local affairs and racism and act for the common good. Lansing should just let Detroit go under.

Sooner or later these cities are going to have to face reality and see what they're in for when they don't pay their bills. When creditors, pensioners, employees, et. al. don't receive payment these cities will then end up in federally run Bankruptcy Courts like it or not. Being tenured federal judges the bankruptcy courts can then sort it all out without all the politics and drama of Michigan's EFM process.

Jack Lessenberry: "An Emergency Manager could be what Detroit needs"

Whoa. Lessenberry is and has always been a pretty standard  progressive Democrat for as long as I have been reading him and so I never expected to hear this opinion from him. Ever. But now we have.

"Detroit government is terribly broken and dysfunctional", says Lessenberry, "in a way it has so far proven impossible for elected leaders to repair. The basic problem is this: What was once a prosperous city of nearly 2 million people is now a largely dilapidated and shrunken one of barely 700,000 mostly very poor people.

In addition to vast debts and a current budget deficit, the city has a social services and public employee sector built for a larger, richer city, and can no longer sustain it. Especially not in the face of massive revenue cuts from the state."

Sad but true. 

Sign of the times...cont'd.

State appointed Emergency Financial Managers gain power under new law
"DPS spokesman Steve Wasko said, 'This decision comes 36 hours after the governor signed the new public act, giving all emergency managers throughout the state more clearly defined powers over operations. This allows us to continue to implement new academic plans and move forward with all the restructuring we have been working on, without the threat and distraction of legal action.' "

Bottom line: Democracy is way over rated anyhow. Especially in Detroit.