US cities face deepening fiscal problems

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/161010.html


America's cities are in crisis. Never before has there been so little taxpayer money to pay for emergency services. Trash collection , street maintenance, also on the chopping bloc. In one of America's most dangerous cities, Camden New Jersey, 168 police, half the force, just sacked, turning in their equipment and badges because the city is broke.

The financial distress in city governments is being felt from one end of the country to the other, lay -offs of public workers, belt tightening cut to schools, city services slashed to the bone, city mayors asking unions to allow salary reductions for public employees to prevent more pink slips. Against that backdrop, dozens of city mayors meeting here in Washington looking to Obama and the feds to rescue them from financial disaster….

Ask the mayors here and they'll all tell you they're grappling with an unprecedented shortfall in city operating revenue that has them desperately seeking a solution that often includes reducing essential city services….

To try and raise and save money, mayors are pushing their city councils to raise taxes, increase city licensing fees, close libraries, cut childcare, and now laying off police and firemen….

Mayors are scheduled to meet Obama on Friday with their beggars bowl at the ready but many said with a shrug, they don't expect the federal government or Congress to save them.