This is unbelievable - Philly Libraries!

[rickford]

Originally Posted by ScottyG

All the overly impressed with themselves, close-minded, brain-washed, suburban living, with too much unearned wealth, and emotional Democrats care about is appearing to have empathy for the less fortunate while robbing the rest of us blind. Republicans do not want people who refer to them as bumpkins living in their communities. And if that means not funding every "art" project, ACORN like organizations, midnight basketball, and all those kickbacks to the wealthy Democratic politicians’ friends/relatives/pockets, then so be it.

Try doing a little research on the statistics of a "Republican" state like Texas versus a text-book perfect “Democrat” utopian peoples state of Massachusetts. There is no comparison; Texas is adding more jobs than the rest of the country combined. Why, because of a conservative approach to taxing and spending. Throwing more money at the problem isn’t the solution to Pennsylvania’s problems.

The warm climate, lack of organized labor, and the presence of cheap migrant labor, and, at least for a while, cheap home prices, no doubt contributed to the population surges of states in the Southwest. (Nevada and Arizona grew more than Texas last year, and they're not totally run by Republicans...)

It's easy to govern your state or city (and implement low taxes) when it is rapidly expanding. But when you've lost 25% of your population- as Philly has- then you are left with decreasing tax revenue and a crumbling community to deal with. We could go on and on about why companies left Philly to begin with (high taxes, big unions, cold climate, etc...) but the point is, they are gone!

Cutting taxes in Philly now would result in a budget disaster- because there appear to be few municpal programs that could be further trimmed to offset the tax cut. Nevertheless, In the future, when we have clawed our way out of this recession, we will really need to take advantage of the decreased operating margins and try to resume our efforts to attract more white collar businesses. This will have to include rock-bottom corporate taxes and reducing the city wage-tax. But again, now is not the time for this. At the moment, we just need to survive!


I think Mayor Nutter understands all of this- which is why I am quite bullish on the future of Philadelphia!

[jdubs]

You can thank the Eagles for this.They owe the city 8 million and they are stalling in court to avoid paying it back.

Obviously they care about the city and are a positive influence on the economy.

i won't really miss the FLP though. It was generally noisy, uncomfortable with outdated books. I could not even study in that place.

http://whyy.org/cms/news/government-...8-million/9866

[kyle19125]

How about some facts on the issue?

All libraries will not close. The main branch on the Ben Franklin Parkway will remain open. 3000 city workers will be laid off, including 900 newly hired police officers and 300 firefighters. Trash collection will occur every two weeks, recycling will still happen once a week (it's a revenue driver for the city). The entire Recreation Department will be shut down and Fairmount Park staffing will be eliminated.

Two factors are at play here. The PA state legislature (the largest in the US in terms of seats) cannot agree on a state budget....meanwhile the other 49 states have managed to do so. If they can't figure out a state budget, how will they ever agree on a city budget? Additionally the city's unions will not allow a decrease (or stop payment) on their black hole-like pension funds which would help balance the budget. On top of that they're actually looking for a 9% pay increase over the next three years because that seems rational to them.

We can blame the Eagles (8 million dollars is a drop in the billion dollar bucket), but overall it's the city's unions and the majority rural state government hayseeds who hate Philly (despite the fact that the metro area accounts for 2/3 of state revenue) that are at fault. City Council is also apparently working with blinders on and unaware of the impending cuts. Don't blame Nutter although that's convenient without looking at facts. Like Obama he inherited a rat's nest of issues and has been given **** from almost Day One that he hasn't fixed it yet, and pretty much zero cooperation from anyone at the local and state levels.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by ScottyG

Try doing a little research on the statistics of a "Republican" state like Texas versus a text-book perfect “Democrat” utopian peoples state of Massachusetts. There is no comparison; Texas is adding more jobs than the rest of the country combined. Why, because of a conservative approach to taxing and spending. Throwing more money at the problem isn’t the solution to Pennsylvania’s problems.

Not quite. Texas' economy is still relatively strong due to a large influx of population. As a result, businesses want to relocate to areas where there are increasing consumer bases, and -- right now -- that's the Sun Belt, which also happens to be generally Republican. HOWEVER, I think it's a bit disingenuous to attribute that to the "conservative" approach to taxing and spending, because, truly, there's no correlation. If PA was growing just as fast as Texas, we, too, would have the same amount of job creation.

For the sake of comparison, look at all of the generally Republican, Southern states right now. Not exactly a bastion of economic stability and success. The darker the state, the higher the unemployment:



http://www.bls.gov/web/lauhsthl.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mployment_rate

It's much more complicated than your overly-simplified political explanation.

[chessimprov]

Free Library Blog

The libraries finally got funding. I am curious what libraries will be closed or how hours will be affected.

[Shizzles]

But at least the union thugs got their rasies and a new home for the iggles!

The stupidity of this state is amazing, even Southerners I've met are horrified.