As Our Cities Crumble... Feeding the Beast!
By Philip A Farruggio
June 13, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" -
We live in a very shrewd Military Industrial Empire. Those who run
things, the very rich and powerful, created and sustained this phony
two party system to divide us and, more importantly, keep the key
issues from our consciousness. Rather than have the American public
focus on what really ails our nation, they occupy many of us with
gay marriage, abortion, immigration and of course the evil
entitlements which are ( they say ) destroying our economy. This
writer says hogwash! As important as those issues are, they pale
compared to what is destroying our economy.
It'll happen pretty soon, when many state and city workers in our
biggest municipalities get that letter in the mail. The letter will
perhaps inform them that their pension funds are in jeopardy. Many
of America's sixty one largest American cities have amassed $ 118
billion in unfunded healthcare liabilities AKA legal promises to pay
healthcare benefits to municipal workers beyond the employee
contributions to finance these funds. Imagine if we had ' Medicare
for All ' to help alleviate employers ( including government ones )
from having to subsidize healthcare? Oh well, that is but the ' tip
of the iceberg ' for our economic woes. The right wing would love to
have us believe that it is those ' lazy government workers ' that
cause all our city and state woes. More Hogwash! There are lazy
workers in the corporate world, along with plenty of lazy bosses.
What is destroying our cities, counties and states is the lack of
federal block grants and revenue sharing to aid them in building
better infrastructure. Jefferson County , Alabama, home to the city
of Birmingham, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011 over a $ 3.14
billion sewer bond debt. Menasha, Wis. defaulted on bonds in 2007 it
had issued to fund a steam plant which has since closed, leaving the
city permanently in the red. Strafford County, N. H. has to
regularly borrow money to cover its short term cash needs after it
spent 2/3 of its budget on a nursing home, which lost $ 36 million
from '04- '09.Taylor , Mich. has a large deficit and is vulnerable
due to significant declines in the tax base, and above average
unfunded pension obligations- a national epidemic when unemployment
surges along with dead end low paying box-store jobs....
I could go on about our cities and their financial strains. First
let's take into consideration the public library system throughout
our nation. As a young boy in 1960s Brooklyn, N.Y. our weekly school
trip to the local library was like going to a Disneyland of books
for me. I would spend not only the allotted time browsing at the
multitude of books, but I would stay there until it approached
dinnertime, and then walk home with a few new books to read. The
library was and still is a haven for so many different tastes.
Nowadays we have DVDs for free , computers to use, daily newspapers
and recent periodicals, meeting rooms available and of course...
books. Not as many new books to choose from for the past seven or
eight ago at my local Central Florida library, because you see they
have been operating at about 70 % of normal budgeting since 2007.
The reality is, as with the aforementioned financial woes of the
cities mentioned above, that War is hell! In Vermont, their governor
proposed a 20% cut in funds to the Vermont Dept. of Libraries. Do
you think the trend will get worse? It has to because of our
infamous Military Industrial Empire and this beasts need for more
wars, weaponry, equipment, troops on the ground and bases worldwide.
If you love what our nation is doing with our so called ' Wars' and
occupations in the Middle East, and our over 900 military bases in
over 100 different countries... to the tune of over HALF of our
federal taxes sent to Uncle Sam... then don't complain. Don't dare
open your big mouth to wail about not having enough money for police
protection and fire personnel, and ambulances , better equipped
schools and safer roads, and of course libraries .Don't bitch and
moan about all those extra fees and charges by your localities, or
higher property taxes etc. NO! You want to wave the Military
Industrial Empire's flag and put the yellow ribbons on your car
bumper ( our young troops should never have been sent anywhere
overseas these past decades) then go ahead! As the old adage states
so clearly: " You can't have your cake and eat it! " You can't have
financial stability with these phony wars and bloated military
spending.
Here is what could have been done in all those instances that I have
referenced above regarding cities in crisis:
Even if but 25% of the military spending was CUT NOW ( equaling over
$ 150 BILLION A YEAR ), and that money was sent back to the states
and their cities , most of those dire circumstances for ALL of those
cities I mentioned would have been solved. Period!
For the cities where the die has not been cast yet, well, they could
have used that refunded tax money to do what the people of those
towns and their elected officials decided to do. Bottom line: More
solvent towns and more solvent citizens. A Great first step, yes?
Then stop ' feeding the beast 'with either apathy or cheerleading
for phony wars!!
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC
longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist. Philip works as an
environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader
since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25%
Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending
25%. Philip can be reached at
PAF1222@bellsouth.net
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