“Many cities greatly expanded their budgets for capital projects during the bubble. Many of these projects were unnecessary and over-the-top “monuments” on which politicians could place their names for all to see.”
“That means any assessment of blame for their predicaments has to expand from such usual suspects as greedy public employees to include banks that flooded these cities with subprime mortgages that were resold into the high-flying securities market.”
You will note that the passage she quoted EXPANDS the blame to include others it does not exonerate the “usual suspects as greedy public employees “.
In the private sector we have a remedy for entities whose expenses (including payroll) are out of line with revenue (no matter what the cause of it)- layoffs, pay cuts, massive restructuring, bankruptcy and whatever is necessary to bring things back into line. Its coming to the public sector soon……
