Lavish welfare programs and public-sector unions (who extract unsustainable benefits from the governments who employ them) are bankrupting governments all across the developed world: Greece, Spain, Ireland, France, Great Britain, as well as American states such as California and New York, are only the most visibly ill; all across the West the reckoning of decades of unsustainable, fantastical book-keeping is at last on the horizon.
A few weeks ago I wrote what will be the inevitable consequence of the coming economic apocalypse: “As public treasuries empty, services and comforts long taken for granted in the West will degrade and then disappear.” And so it is coming to pass. In Britain, 75 percent of town councils are considering dimming artificial lights at night – or eliminating them altogether – in a desperate attempt to save money (over the strenuous objections of police officials, who warn of the boon the encroaching dark will mean to brigands of all kinds).
And now, another ominous sign: In Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, 167 police officers, comprising 14 percent of the entire force, have been dismissed. The layoffs are a direct result of the local police union rejecting the cash-strapped city’s request for a one-time salary deferment and a cap on overtime, which the union “saw as a violation of their contract,” according to CBS New York.
“These layoffs were entirely avoidable. These layoffs could’ve been stopped at any moment by the union leadership. We could’ve cut the layoffs in half or a fraction if the union leadership was willing to do something in partnership with the city,” Newark Mayor Cory Booker lamented.
Booker went on the assure the citizens that they will not be any less safe due to the drop in the number of police patrolling their streets at night – an argument few are buying. Newark resident Emma Montgomery put it best: “The criminals are sitting back, saying, ‘Oh boy. I like this. I like this!’” Indeed. And Newark is neither the first, nor will it be the last locality to have to make such painful sacrifices, as so many are at the mercy of extravagant union contracts.
Less light; fewer police. A darker, more dangerous world approaches.
Matt Patterson is senior editor at the Capital Research Center and a contributor to Proud to Be Right: Voices of the Next Conservative Generation (HarperCollins, 2010). His email is [email protected].
