Welcome to the revolution

If Stockton, Calif., goes bankrupt, it will the largest city so far to do so.

The scary part is that dubious record no doubt won't last long. Many American cities are worried about making ends meet. And the problem is not revenue. Cities (coupled with counties, states and the federal government) have taxed their residents just about as much as they dare under the Blood 'N Turnip Concept.

In the good years, cities allowed themselves to to give the store away to bloated government functions and double-dipping public employee unions. Instead of taking the conservative fiscal road, elected officials who owed their positions to the money and political clout of public employee unions returned the favor and spent every penny and more of the public treasury.

It's just as simple as that. Your local media doesn't believe that. I am sorry to say it is most often because most newspaper folks come minted with two things: 1.) A built-in bias that unions are good and businesses are greedy and bad; and 2.) A complete lack of understanding of a balance sheet. Consequently, citizens don't get the kind of warning they need to start a grass roots correction before it's too late.

If reporters better understood that unions are businesses -- and then started to crunch a little math with that in mind -- they'd be in a better position to write stories about what ails our cities.

It always comes down to the spending. It's unforgiving accounting. Now, you can choose to believe that, or not. But you'd be wise to listen to the angst behind Guy Domench. He's just one of the work-a-day folks in Stockton (and just like multitudes around the country) who find themselves the dissatisfied milk cows for irresponsible city officials who broke their covenants with citizens.

When the L.A. Times reporter was in a Stockton restaurant interviewing town fathers about the crisis, Mr. Domench was in the establishment to repair the bar's jukebox.

He stood up and said:

"'People are paying plenty of taxes. This is a high-tax town,' he said. 'The problem is the sweetheart deals they gave the employee unions. I'm 56 and I can't retire; I'd go broke. But these public employees have tremendous retirement deals. I want to see the city go bankrupt now. Break the deals.' "

Read the whole story on the crisis in Stockton here. It's a good primer for those worried about bankruptcy coming to a town near you. There will come a time very soon, I'm afraid, when this kind of financial revolution will grip dozens of cities in every state, most of them much larger than Stockton.