On May 18, 2011, Bank of America, Citi and Chase, three of the largest racist, predatory lenders in Detroit, along with Fannie Mae, the government agency that bails out the banks with every foreclosure and does most of the evictions of homeowners at 36th District Court, sponsored a conference about continuing their takeover of Detroit through their front organization, “NeighborWorks.” Mayor Dave Bing opened the conference, spelling out his agenda of cutting public services and the wages and jobs of city workers to pay off the city’s massive debt service to the banks. Even some of the attendees joined the protest, called by Moratorium NOW!
No cuts by Snyder, Bing, or Council; no EM!
By Diane Bukowski
DETROIT – All over the world, poor and working people are rising up against the International Monetary Fund and the international banks. During the G-20 summit held last June in Toronto, Canada, in the midst of a global economic crisis, government officials announced it was time to reduce multi-trillion dollar budget deficits blowing up like nuclear bombs everywhere.
The simplest way to reduce the debt, of course, would have been to quit paying it, as Third World nations have been demanding for decades. But that was not on the agenda of the G-20. Instead, plans were laid to chop down the very pillars of civilization, services and infrastructure meant to fulfill basic human needs: housing, schools, hospitals, public transportation, even water and food.
Protesters rose up in Toronto, burning police cars and battering banks. Prior to Toronto, and since then, the world’s people have targeted the banks everywhere, in massive protests from Ireland to the Philippines, from Mexico to Africa. They know who the enemy is and they are mobilizing.
But here in Detroit, we have been awfully slow to learn.
An example is the current debate over the city of Detroit budget, taking place with the threat of Public Act 4 hovering overhead like a giant vulture. No matter that Bing is flapping one wing of the vulture while Gov. Rick Snyder flaps the other wing.
Tashi Kiya demands: Cut debt service!
Both Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council are busy laying the blame for the city’s alleged budgetary crisis at the feet of public workers, their wages, pensions, and benefits, and the money spent on services for Detroiters. Meanwhile, even some so-called progressives are diverting the fight by creating imaginary castles in the air where Detroiters will live in green spaces, return to farming, and resurrect underground creeks flowing to the Detroit River that were covered over more than a century ago.
The City Council as a whole wants to cut even more from the budget than Bing, a scenario that has happened for several years now. Oh, for the days when Maryann Mahaffey and others did battle with the Mayor to advocate for the people and the workers.
Today, both the Mayor and the Council are missing the elephant in the room.
After a huge set-to with the Council, Bing finally coughed up a 440 page “Deficit Elimination Plan,” mainly filled with mind-boggling charts and diagrams that will lead to permanent crossing of the eyes if studiously read all the way through.
“Our latest forecast . . . . shows that if we take no action our annual deficits will grow from the $53MM projected in 2010/11 to $337MM by FY 2016; with an accumulated deficit of $1.5 B by 2016,” Bing says.
Bing and bosom buddy Snyder
“ . . . .We have shared the data with Council members and met with budget staff early in the debate. We have also met with State Executive Officials including the Governor, the Treasurer, and their team to communicate our analysis, the 2012 budget and the deficit elimination plan.”
Bing then proceeds to unveil his plan, the Bing-Snyder plan. It boils down to getting more out of the little people by hook or by crook or by PA 4.
Bing plans to turn the city around and end up in surplus status by 2015 through the following measures:
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- AFSCME protest 2010
First and foremost, reducing pension and medical costs; if the unions don’t agree by Sept. 1, 2011, the PA 4 vulture will darken the skies. Remember, many pensioners make only a few hundred a month if they retired before 1994, and many current workers are at poverty-level wages after years of wage concessions. The pension systems have already agreed to defer this year’s payments due from the city.
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More lay-offs, wage cuts and furlough days, further reducing available services as well as the city’s tax base.
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Increasing property tax collection by $5 million at a time when Detroiters continue to be thrown out of their homes right and left by the banks.
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A gain of $17 million by hiking the income tax rate for individuals back to 2.5 percent, under an agreement with Snyder, through legislation introduced by Rep. David Nathan (D-Detroit). What income? The plan says the official unemployment rate in Detroit is 22 percent, but we ALL know that MOST of the folks in poor communities are out of work.
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- Federal assistance line in Detroit
Compuware (wonder how much Bing is paying them to do so) is coming up with a plan to shake loose $154.9 million from resident non-filers, $21.8 million from corporations, and $6.5 million from commuter non-filers. Again, how many residents are working?
- Taxing the casinos more? Don’t be fooled. Bing is not talking about taxing casino PROFITS, but about taxing INDIVIDUAL WINS. Poor little senior citizens.
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- DTE protest Photo by Daymon Hartley
Restoring the utility tax of 5 percent. That’s NOT a tax on the utilities like DTE, which makes billions every year in profits. That’s a tax on the utility USERS. Is Bing insane? How many Detroiters have their utilities shut-off now because they can’t afford to pay their bills, let alone pay an additional tax?
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Outsourcing Public Lighting Department (virtually already done, with Detroit paying DTE big bucks for its power.)
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Outsourcing DPW—more profits for mob-controlled waste management companies.
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Regionalizing D-DOT and reducing the city subsidy to this enterprise agency. What will happen to the jobs of D-DOT workers and the taxes THEY pay? What will happen to Detroit commuters and their routes—who will control where the routes go and who gets the jobs?
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- City and county workers protest Bing, Ficano
Consolidation of Health Department, Buildings and Safety, police lock-ups with Wayne County. Ficano is already at war with his workers—more of the same, fewer jobs.
- Combining the Recreation Department with DPS, already experiencing dissolution.
- And etc.
The one thing Bing makes clear he will not cut is (bated breath here) – THE CITY’S DEBT PAYMENTS TO THE BANKS.
And herein lies the true insanity. If there was ever a time for a solution posed by former Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy during the Depression years of the 1930’s – a moratorium on debt to the banks, IT IS NOW! If not now, when? When the banks are blazing in the skies, having fallen victim to the just wrath of the people?
Just look at the city’s own figures on its debt, taken from the 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. THE CITY’S TOTAL DEBT TO THE BANKS AS OF 2010 WAS $7.7 BILLION, more than seven times this year’s budget of $1.2 billion:
But the chart above does not show the real picture, because it takes into account only the principal on the city’s debt to the banks.
READ THE CHART BELOW AND WEEP, BUT THEN RISE UP—DEMAND AT LEAST A MORATORIUM ON THE INTEREST ON DETROIT’S DEBT TO THE BANKS! THE BANKS HAVE DESTROYED DETROIT, NOT ONLY THROUGH FORECLOSURES, BUT THROUGH USURIOUS INTEREST RATES AND OTHER PRACTICES.
Adding the figures below, from the 2010 CAFR, the city paid a total of $433,691,964 in debt to the banks in 2011. Of that, $216,418,043 was in interest alone. THE INTEREST ALONE IS FOUR TIMES MORE THAN FOUR TIMES THE 2011 DEFICIT BING CITES! The U.S. government has bailed out the banks to the tune of trillions of dollars–TIME FOR PAYBACK!
