Broke

What happens when you have liberal Democrat politicians and liberal Democrat policies for decades?

This.

Nearly half of the owners of Detroit's 305,000 properties failed to pay their  tax bills last year, exacerbating a punishing cycle of declining revenues and  diminished services for a city in a financial crisis, according to a Detroit  News analysis of government records.

The News reviewed more than 200,000 pages of tax documents and found that 47  percent of the city's taxable parcels are delinquent on their 2011 bills.

Delinquency is so pervasive that 77 blocks had only one owner who paid taxes last year, The News found. Many of those who don't pay question why they should  in a city that struggles to light its streets or keep police on them.

"Why pay taxes?" asked Fred Phillips, who owes more than $2,600 on his home  on an east-side block where five owners paid 2011 taxes. "Why should I send them  taxes when they aren't supplying services? It is sickening. … Every time I see  the tax bill come, I think about the times we called and nobody came."

 

Comments

[Jackie]

We moved from the Detroit area (I say area because nobody really LIVES in Detroit anymore) 4 years ago and we will never go back. What happened to that city is generations and generations of politicians and and eventually it's people believing that government should and will take care of you -- only there will never be enough money. Government itself does not generate an income -- it taxes the people who work hard. Eventually people learn that it does not pay to work everyday - what happens then? Take a tour of Detroit (during the day with a trained CCW holder) and imagine that decay on the scale of a state, a region, the United States....

[Peg]

Jackie; very well said.