From the Los Angeles Daily News today comes one of the more sickening stories I have read about the LA City Council mishandling the operation of the City of Los Angeles. Unlike many cities in financial meltdowns, the LA Council is actually blamed by bond rating companies for the financial disaster--NOT JUST THE ECONOMY. Council Member and Lt. Governor Candidate Janice Hahn was singled out for her words and recommendations without knowing the impact of her recommendation. As the Daily News said:
Last week it stopped being funny.
L.A. council dithers as city nears fiscal cliff
Those were real tears in the City Council chamber as members of the various public employee unions made their case why 4,000 of them shouldn't be fired due to the budget sinkhole that promises to swallow us all.
Moved by the tears, Councilwoman Janice Hahn proclaimed, "It's time for us to lay off private contractors and keep our city workers!"
In Hahn's world there's a hierarchy of sorrow. A city worker losing his job is somehow worse than you losing your job.Unemployment is clearly more tragic if the laid off worker has a union card in his wallet. This must come as a great comfort to the thousands upon thousands of private sector taxpayers in L.A. who have been fired over the past 18 months. Sure you lost your job and your health insurance. OK, so you're upside down on your home, your taxes have been hiked and your pension has plummeted, but at least you are not one of those poor city workers who might lose his job.
Janice "Evita" Hahn cavalierly suggests firing private contractors, as if their children's stomachs fill themselves. Fired is fired, Ms. Hahn. Nonunion tears are just as salty.
All three credit agencies cited the same reason for their pessimistic view of Los Angeles: The mayor and City Council have been MIA during this financial crisis - a crisis largely of their own making.
The Daily News goes on to detail that the LA City Council REPEATED ignored the advice of the financial folks that work for the City to act or more folks would loose their city jobs. As the Daily News put it:
The Spring Street Ostriches continue to twist like Cirque du Soleil aerialists as they try to come up with any reason to avoid doing anything. Every day of delay layers an additional $380,000 in debt.
If someone ever writes a book about our current generation of L.A. politicians the title will be "Profiles in Cowardice."
The highest paid City Council in America continues to dither while this great city crashes on the rocks of insolvency. To add insult to injury, Janice Hahn and Company are only interested in drying the tears of the public employee unions and the special favored few.
