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…
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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,…
What government can do
The terrain of urban economic development policy and urban renewal is awash with bad ideas and awful consequences – intended and unintended (and certainly the Bronx is no exception). But in the context of urban austerity, and the growing idea that urban government should be limited to a skeleton of public safety services, it’s also…
Turning out the lights
Back from vacation and trying to keep up with the news out of Detroit, where the state is moving quickly to takeover city government. As the recession continues, and state budgets continue in the red, some cities are cutting down to the bone. What distinguishes these latest austerity measures is how noticeable they are to…