The Best of Alan Caruba: Public Policy

Obama is Becoming Public Enemy Number One
By Alan Caruba Tuesday, February 11, 2014

America has arrived at a point at which it has never been in its 226 years of existence since the Constitution became effective in 1788. It has a President for whom that Constitution is routinely ignored in his quest to “fundamentally transform” America into a nation it has never been despite the slide into progressive policies that began early in the last century.

His namesake legacy legislation, Obamacare, is wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of Americans who have lost or will lose their healthcare plans that have been replaced with those whose cost is far higher. It is costing the nation jobs, reducing further the income of millions. The Congressional Budget Office just released a report predicting it will cost 2.3 million jobs and add $1 trillion in projected deficits.

As reported by CNSnews on February 6, “The debt of the U.S. government has increased $6.666 trillion since President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, according to the latest numbers released by the Treasury Department. It stands at $17,293,019,654, 981.61. The total debt of the nation did not exceed $6.666 trillion until 2003. The U.S. has accumulated as much debt as it did since its founding......

U.S. is Going Bankrupt One City at a Time

By Alan Caruba Saturday, February 8, 2014

Time to start watching U.S. cities go bankrupt. Prior to Detroit, there was Stockton, California, and, according to Stephen Moore, now the chief economist with the Heritage Foundation, there are more than sixty of the largest cities that “are plagued with the same kinds of retirement legacy costs that sent Detroit in Chapter 9 bankruptcy” last year.

“Keep an eye on ‘too big to fail’ cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York,” he warned. Among the twenty cities he listed in an August 2013 Newsmax article, he cited Compton and Oakland, CA, Harrisburg, PA, and Providence, RI. What these and other cities have in common is that “the vast majority are located in states with forced unions, non-right-to-work states.”

As Steve Stanek, a research fellow with the Heartland Institute, reported, when a federal judge, Stephen Rhodes, cleared the way for Detroit’s bankruptcy filing, in December, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFCCME) immediately filed a notice of appeal, but Detroit has more than 100,000 creditors. As its emergency financial manager, Kevyn Orr, said, “The reality is the city has no cash on hand to pay the magnitude of the debt we have, which is $12 billion--$5.7 billion of which has to do with health care obligations, $3.5 billion has to do with pensions, and $2 billion has to do with bondholders.”......