The economy is bad. Life as we know it will soon end; the Mayan calendar says so. All in all, our prospects are grim.
A story getting very little play so far is the train wrecks that are state and local governments. Unlike Congress, they can't just print more money, so if they can't make ends meet and cannot borrow the money, there have to be cuts.
There are few grown-ups in government anywhere. If there were, we'd be hearing about PAY CUTS for government workers. It's going to happen anyway, so why not do it responsibly. There is tremendous evidence that government employees of all stripes are overpaid relative to their private sector counterparts - not in all cases, of course, but in many, especially when you factor in benefits, which also need to be cut drastically. (Again, this is going to happen anyway).
But I digress.
Normally, the answer is to raise taxes....but these are bad times to be raising taxes. In order to coax the taxpayer into a tax increase, the normal approach is to cut vital services so the taxpayer feels the pain of loss acutely. But nobody really focuses on non-essential services.
The LA Times does, however. San Diego faces a $43MM shortfall, detailed here. So how do they cut back? BY ELIMINATING SUPERVISION AT THE LOCAL SKATEBOARD PARKS!!!!
The fact that we even have paid supervision at skateboard parks is alarming to me.
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