Detroit City Council targets public transportation, arts and fire department

The Democratic Party-controlled Detroit City Council issued a call for this week for savage new cuts. The council is proposing to slash another $65 million in spending beyond the $200 million reduction contained in the budget Mayor David Bing outlined last month.

Among the areas targeted are pubic transportation as well as fire and police. The budget also contains huge funding reductions for Detroit cultural institutions including the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), the Detroit Historical Museum and the Charles H Wright Museum of African American History.

The proposed new cuts come as the Bing administration is pushing ahead with plans to loot the pension funds of city workers. On Thursday, the mayor’s office announced that an agreement had been reached with the city’s two pension funds to defer over $60 million in payments. The city owes money to the funds to compensate for the $2 billion in losses in the wake of the 2008 financial crash.

The multimillionaire Bing is demanding that the city’s 10,000 municipal workers agree to increased health care and pension payments. He is threatening to use new powers granted by the state of Michigan to bring in an Emergency Financial Manager to void existing collective bargaining agreements if the city’s 48 unions don’t agree to the cuts. Pay for city workers is already so low that many qualify for public assistance. The average city worker currently earns less than $30,000 a year... Last week the Michigan legislature abolished the state business tax while raising taxes on workers and retirees.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/detr-m21.shtml

Why keep pretending they should have these things?

What will they do when the people come to a point where they have nothing left to lose and they come knocking on his door??

Detroit has rid itself of many evil corporations.