Diplomacia e Relações Internacionais
O que tinha de acontecer, aconteceu. Acostumados a viver de fumaça, a ser descontada no futuro, ou de mensalão chinês, os americanos estão tendo de confrontar a realidade, pela primeira vez em muitos anos.
A começar pelos serviços públicos, de transporte, educação, prestação de diversos serviços sociais que diminuem, ou são simplesmente suprimidos.
Chegou o momento de pagar a conta...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Governments Go to Extremes as the Downturn Wears On
Dana Romanoff
The New York Times, August 6, 2010
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation and sending working parents scrambling to find care for them.
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.
Faced with the steepest and longest decline in tax collections on record, state, county and city governments have resorted to major life-changing cuts in core services like education, transportation and public safety that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable. And services in many areas could get worse before they get better.
The length of the downturn means that many places have used up all their budget gimmicks, cut services, raised taxes, spent their stimulus money — and remained in the hole. Even with Congress set to approve extra stimulus aid, some analysts say states are still facing huge shortfalls.
Cities and states are notorious for crying wolf around budget time, and for issuing dire warnings about draconian cuts that never seem to materialize. But the Great Recession has been different. Around the country, there have already been drastic cuts in core services like education, transportation and public safety, and there are likely to be more before the downturn ends. The cuts that have disrupted lives in Hawaii, Georgia and Colorado may be extreme, but they reflect the kinds of cuts being made nationwide, disrupting the lives of millions of people in ways large and small.
Read the entire article here.
- Ron Paul: Contra O Monopolio Estatal Na Educacao - Mises Daily
The State’s Education Monopoly Increases Prices and Destroys Choice by Ron Paul Mises Daily, on October 14, 2013 Editor's Note: This selection is taken from Chapter 5 of Ron Paul's new book The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our...
- Apres Moi, Le Deluge: Obama's Budget Free Fall...
EDITORIAL Real Cost of Shrinking Government The New York Times: February 16, 2013 In less than two weeks, a cleaver known as the sequester will fall on some of the most important functions of the United States government. About $85 billion will be cut...
- The Unstavable Beast: A Armadilha Dos Servicos Publicos - Kenneth Rogoff
The unstavable beast Kenneth Rogoff Project Syndicate, January 3, 2013 CAMBRIDGE – As the world watches the United States grapple with its fiscal future, the contours of the battle reflect larger social and philosophical divisions that are likely to...
- Noticias Do Imperio: Ficando Parecido Com O Brasil...
Bem, parecido é um exagero, pois eles ainda não conseguiram ter um Congresso como o nosso (embora eles tenham tantos caipiras quanto temos aqui), e ainda não conseguiram alcançar nossos níveis de corrupção, esses verdadeiramente inigualáveis....
- Enfrentando Os Mandarins Do Servico Publico Americano...
A tragédia, talvez, é que nem se trata de mandarins -- ao contrário dos nossos -- mas de simples pensionistas governamentais. Eles até não ganham muito -- ao contrário dos nossos, especialmente juizes -- mas simplesmente enfrentam a calamidade do...
Diplomacia e Relações Internacionais
EUA: com a crise, servicos publicos diminuem...
O que tinha de acontecer, aconteceu. Acostumados a viver de fumaça, a ser descontada no futuro, ou de mensalão chinês, os americanos estão tendo de confrontar a realidade, pela primeira vez em muitos anos.
A começar pelos serviços públicos, de transporte, educação, prestação de diversos serviços sociais que diminuem, ou são simplesmente suprimidos.
Chegou o momento de pagar a conta...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Governments Go to Extremes as the Downturn Wears On
Dana Romanoff
The New York Times, August 6, 2010
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation and sending working parents scrambling to find care for them.
Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.
Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.
Faced with the steepest and longest decline in tax collections on record, state, county and city governments have resorted to major life-changing cuts in core services like education, transportation and public safety that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable. And services in many areas could get worse before they get better.
The length of the downturn means that many places have used up all their budget gimmicks, cut services, raised taxes, spent their stimulus money — and remained in the hole. Even with Congress set to approve extra stimulus aid, some analysts say states are still facing huge shortfalls.
Cities and states are notorious for crying wolf around budget time, and for issuing dire warnings about draconian cuts that never seem to materialize. But the Great Recession has been different. Around the country, there have already been drastic cuts in core services like education, transportation and public safety, and there are likely to be more before the downturn ends. The cuts that have disrupted lives in Hawaii, Georgia and Colorado may be extreme, but they reflect the kinds of cuts being made nationwide, disrupting the lives of millions of people in ways large and small.
Read the entire article here.
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- Ron Paul: Contra O Monopolio Estatal Na Educacao - Mises Daily
The State’s Education Monopoly Increases Prices and Destroys Choice by Ron Paul Mises Daily, on October 14, 2013 Editor's Note: This selection is taken from Chapter 5 of Ron Paul's new book The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our...
- Apres Moi, Le Deluge: Obama's Budget Free Fall...
EDITORIAL Real Cost of Shrinking Government The New York Times: February 16, 2013 In less than two weeks, a cleaver known as the sequester will fall on some of the most important functions of the United States government. About $85 billion will be cut...
- The Unstavable Beast: A Armadilha Dos Servicos Publicos - Kenneth Rogoff
The unstavable beast Kenneth Rogoff Project Syndicate, January 3, 2013 CAMBRIDGE – As the world watches the United States grapple with its fiscal future, the contours of the battle reflect larger social and philosophical divisions that are likely to...
- Noticias Do Imperio: Ficando Parecido Com O Brasil...
Bem, parecido é um exagero, pois eles ainda não conseguiram ter um Congresso como o nosso (embora eles tenham tantos caipiras quanto temos aqui), e ainda não conseguiram alcançar nossos níveis de corrupção, esses verdadeiramente inigualáveis....
- Enfrentando Os Mandarins Do Servico Publico Americano...
A tragédia, talvez, é que nem se trata de mandarins -- ao contrário dos nossos -- mas de simples pensionistas governamentais. Eles até não ganham muito -- ao contrário dos nossos, especialmente juizes -- mas simplesmente enfrentam a calamidade do...