The discourse of austerity often invokes the specter of the technocrat: fiscal crisis has often paved the way for “emergency” takeovers of urban governments, with lasting consequences for both cities and democracy. In Michigan, fiscal crisis may be used to legitimate the dissolution of Detroit’s elected government (on the heels of Flint and the Detroit…
Category: Austerity
Austerity in Britain: not working?
Brad DeLong, blogger and economics professor at UC Berkeley, discusses the recent economic news from Brtain, home of (and the “Big Society”). By contrast, the Cameron-Osborne policies of expansion-through-austerity have produced a flatline for real GDP, and the odds are high that British real GDP is headed down again. In less than a year, if…
The State of the Union in 2012 – NYTimes.com
As expected, President Obama’s State of the Union speech hit on the themes of deficit reduction, taxes, and government spending that have characterized politics at the national, state and local level for the past years. The NYT editorial board’s take: A year ago, after the last State of the Union address, we applauded President Obama…
Devolving the Budget Crisis
An important piece in the NYT from back in March about state efforts to balance their budgets by cutting aid to cities. The article talks about the “balloon” effect: states reduce spending and sometimes taxes by reducing (or eliminating) aid to cities. Cities may respond by raising local taxes in order to fill the gap…
National League of Cities looks ahead, and backward
Bill Barnes latest column Emerging Issues: Doing Less with Less, and Beyond | nlc.org does a nice job of contextualizing the fiscal crises being faced by so many cities. At the recent NLC Congress of Cities, public talk at workshops and private chats in the hallways included comparing notes about shared services, the effects of personnel reductions,…