[RealJustme]

Obama is following the same play book that prior liberal leaders in Detroit used.

Detroit, which is trying to avoid becoming the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy, struggles to serve residents after revenue declined when the auto industry collapsed and the city began to empty. Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is preparing to name an emergency manager, who will have to address debt and derivatives taken on in the last eight years.

“We have no lights, no buses, poor streets and now we’re paying millions of dollars a year on our debt,” said David Sole, a retired municipal worker and advocate for Moratorium Now Coalition, a Detroit group that fights foreclosures and evictions. “The banks said they need to be paid first. But there is no money.”

The inhabitants who remain endure unreliable buses, inadequate police and fire protection and broken street lights that have darkened entire blocks.

Last year, it cut police staffing by 11.6 percent to 2,836, according to budget documents. Killings spiked. Detroit had 411 homicides last year, up 9 percent from 2011.

The city started borrowing to plug budget holes in 2005 under Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted this week on corruption charges. That year, it issued $1.4 billion in securities to fund union pension payments. Last year, it added $129.5 million in debt, 9.3 percent of its general-fund budget, in part to repay loans taken to service other bonds. While the city's population suffered and were forced to endure poor public service and make cut backs, the city's unions flourished with many union members retiring in their 40's and 50's with pensions over 300% the average salary of other workers in the city. The city continues to borrow to insure the unions are well cared for. Obama recently spoke before the UAW and assured them that the Government would insure that Detriot's union contracts are honored and if that meant Federal funds were needed, then that would happen.