Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 13, 2012

The City ofNorth Las Vegashas declared itself an economic ?disaster area.?

?We are in a fiscal emergency,? City Council Member Wade Wagner told the Washington Post. ?North Las Vegas is ground zero basically for foreclosures in the nation?. So because our property taxes have declined so much, we really had to invoke this [emergency statute].?

Like many cities across the nation,North Las Vegasspent extravagantly during the housing bubble, ramping up salary and benefits packages for employees and beginning construction on a $130 million City Hall. The city faces a $30 million budget gap, and a disastrous ?BBB? bond rating from Fitch Ratings.

Sixty-six percent of the city?s budget goes to ?public safety? ? mainly the police and fire departments. Owing to the influence of government employee unions, this is a city where a typical police officer can receive more than $200,000 a year in salary and benefits.

Absent the emergency declaration, mandatory police and fire union pay increases would mean gutting other services ? such as libraries and rec centers. The public employee unions have gone to court to challenge that declaration ? and preserve their pay increases in the midst of the city?s fiscal disaster.  People like that don?t make a particularly sympathetic proletariat.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.