What Would RedStateVT Do?

Groundless
Once the nation’s fourth-largest city, Detroit had grown up around the auto industry, booming right along with it in the 1950s. City workers gained ground with pay increases intended to keep pace with those the United Auto Workers won for its members, analysts said. 
....
To preserve cash, the city resorted to increasing its workers’ future pensions at contract time, instead of raising their pay. That helped balance the immediate budgets, but set up a time bomb sure to explode as more workers retired. The cost of the retirees’ pensions also grew because of an inflation-protection feature that compounds every year. (NYT, 3/11/2013)

Detroit is the latest and biggest - but not the last - of American cities to implode due to the reckless actions of feckless politicians. Think about what the excerpts above tell us. The political class in Detroit decided that public employee salaries should keep pace with those of auto workers. Yes, these are the same auto workers whose union bosses extracted ever-increasing salaries and benefits from feckless auto company management. Which led to less profitability, which led to declining quality standards, which fueled the rise of Japanese auto manufacturers, which led to even less profitability and eventually a government bailout of two of the three domestic car companies. 

And once the cash ran out because of decreased tax revenues (see above), city managers decided that the answer was to juice pensions. Note also the role of the "inflation-protection feature." This same argument is taking place now with respect to Social Security. Republicans want to rein in the methodology for future Social Security increases. Guess what Democrats say?


Twice
For the second time in history, federal regulators have accused an American state of securities fraud, finding that Illinois misled investors about the condition of its public pension system from 2005 to 2009. (NYT, 3/11/2013)

Think that we were exaggerating about the pension crisis in this country?


Sugar Sugar
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was dealt a stinging blow on Monday when a state Supreme Court Judge quashed his plan to ban the sale of large sugary drinks in the city's restaurants and other venues. (WSJ, 3/11/2013)

We heard a good observation recently on the issue of Bloomberg and his Big Gulp ban. The commentator noted the absurdity of Bloomberg's obsession with large sodas saying: "what is he going to do next, ban restaurants from serving large pieces of cake?" It is - as Republicans note - the Nanny State gone wild. Bloomberg - another politician very concerned about his legacy - is now left defending a silly idea. It is akin to Liberals trying to solve mass killings perpetrated by the mentally ill by limiting the size of gun magazines. 

Some conservatives have criticized Michelle Obama, but we actually prefer aspects of her approach to addressing obesity in America. Namely use the bully pulpit to encourage kids to get up and exercise and try to improve school cafeterias.