Ford to City: Drop Dead
Jan. 11th, 2021 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prakapovichA few days later, Ford made his famous speech—immortalized by the Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead”—in which he promised to veto any bill that bailed out the city, warning that New York’s problems were a microcosm of those facing the nation: “If we go on spending more than we have, providing more benefits and more services than we can pay for, then a day of reckoning will come to Washington and the whole country just as it has to New York City.” And when “that day of reckoning comes, who will bail out the United States of America?”
Still, the conservative logic according to which the federal government should stand aside and let the nation’s largest metropolis go bankrupt simply to teach a political lesson has never entirely disappeared. Indeed, more than fiscal recklessness, it now seems that this anti-government animus may bring us to the “day of reckoning” of which Ford spoke. Today, Washington allows cities such as Detroit to file for bankruptcy, even as financial institutions receive bailouts with few strings attached. Regardless of the consequences, the political descendants of Alan Greenspan seem happy to take the federal government to the brink of default, just as they were content to let New York City go under thirty-eight years ago.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/lessons-great-default-crisis-1975/
Still, the conservative logic according to which the federal government should stand aside and let the nation’s largest metropolis go bankrupt simply to teach a political lesson has never entirely disappeared. Indeed, more than fiscal recklessness, it now seems that this anti-government animus may bring us to the “day of reckoning” of which Ford spoke. Today, Washington allows cities such as Detroit to file for bankruptcy, even as financial institutions receive bailouts with few strings attached. Regardless of the consequences, the political descendants of Alan Greenspan seem happy to take the federal government to the brink of default, just as they were content to let New York City go under thirty-eight years ago.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/lessons-great-default-crisis-1975/
