What is happening in Scranton, Pa., is par for the course when it comes to believing we can spend and tax our way out of debt.

Broke Scranton, PA cuts employees to minimum wage!

Scranton has a 2012 debt of $16 million,  a sizeable shortfall for a single municipality.  The mayor,  a died-in-the-wool big spending Democrat,  has cut public sector worker’s wages to $7.25  an hour, limited payouts for workman comp claims, cut all overtime pay, and limited disability payments,  all of this in direct violation of a recent court order not to follow these strategies.  

My first response to this news was to say “Bravo,”  but,  after taking a closer look,  I ended my cheer and now wonder just how Scranton is going to get out of the mess its Democrat leadership and public worker unions have created.  It is not as simply as cutting wages to seven bucks an hour. 

As it turns out,  the mayor is not fighting for fiscal responsibility.  Rather,  the mayor’s solution to this present distress includes a 28%  personal income tax hike and a 78% hike to property taxes, something his city council has refused to allow.  The mayor is angry and is putting pressure where he can,  to get his way . . . . . again, in violation of a court order that promises to be revisited this week.   

What is wrong with these Democrats !!!??? So many simply never even think of cutting spending.  That is true with this Scranton example and it is true in the case of the Obama Administration.  With all the talk of carrying over the Bush tax cuts for one single year,  there is not a word, not a hint,  of significant and systemic spending reform.  Obama and the Socialist Democrats now in power,  do not believe is such strategies,  period. 

This federal “progressive” tax industry is not the only example of Democrat spending nonsense.

The State of Illinois,  under control of a Democrat governor and  congress,  followed much the same strategy as Stranton, raising income taxes by a stunning 68%.  As a result,  the State is paying the price with a continued debt (the higher tax rates did not solve the problem) coupled with a mass exodus of business minded employers. 

California is another sad example of Democrat financial  “planning.”  We [here in California] are close to $20 billion in debt for the current year,  yet,  the State has decided to spend another 4 billion on a nonsensical  highspeed rail project,  money the State simply does not have,  money that will not be complemented with federal funds,  should the House continue under GOP control after the election. 

  

Over the past year,  some 13 municipalities have gone into bankruptcy, nation wide.    All are located in Democrat conclaves and run by Democrat majorities. 

What this country desperately needs,  is an amendment to state and federal  Constitutions requiring a financial/business background for all legislators and,  especially,  for presidential candidates and governors.

Look at what we have in B Obama;  a man who has no formal or practical  training in finance,  no experience in business management,  and not enough sense to enlist the services of people who are qualified to run this country.  

I guarantee you one thing,  this will be the very last time we,  as a nation,  elect a community organizer to the High Office in my adult children's lifetime.