Richard Ravitch: More Detroits Are on the Way - WSJ.com
The most significant step taken after New York City's near-bankruptcy in 1975 was to curb creative-accounting practices.
How was that accomplished?
Through a state requirement that the city balance its budget in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.
The city has not had a fiscal crisis since.
...Sadly, no other local government chose to follow the example of New York City, a choice that has led to chronic shortfalls.
....The report's main finding is that in most states and cities the problems are structural and the crisis is deepening.
.....But the most critical piece of the states' fiscal dilemma is that they are borrowing to cover their operating deficits.
They do this directly—by issuing debt securities—but also indirectly.
Some states, like New York, make contributions to their pension systems in promissory notes rather than cash.
States and cities also sell assets and treat the proceeds as operating revenues, in effect selling off the family silver to stay afloat.
...The political difficulty involved in such a step will be far less than the pain that will result if states and localities are not forced to move toward a responsible system of accrual budgeting.
One thing is clear:
Continuing to use cash budgeting practices that allow states and cities to inflate revenues, defer costs and multiply the burdens on future generations is the worst option.
Federal employees and a contractor diverted more than $1 million of charitable contributions to spending on themselves for in-office massages, meals at every meeting and other luxuries and unnecessary expenses, a government audit found.
"The Obama administration’s Department of Labor, which is supposed to represent the needs of U.S. workers, said Monday that the government needs to find ways to get more skilled foreign workers into the country.
During those two years the actual effects of the law would be reviewed to determine if it should undergo further changes.
"Mark explains that Senator Carl Levin, whom he describes as a nasty man, is in the most powerful position in the Senate. As the Chairman of the Subcommittee Investigative Committee, he has standing subpoena power. In a flagrant abuse of power, he used his position to write letters that threatened the IRS and pushed them to go after Tea Party groups. Even worse, Mark said, “he wasn’t just calling for the investigation of these groups, he was calling for the prosecution of these groups.”
But on Friday, after a protracted legal battle between the Department of Energy and power companies, the feds are backing down.
Socialism is, by a very wide margin, the worst disaster in the history of the human race. 
"The University of California, Los Angeles student government’s judicial board held a hearing Thursday night after the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine formally complained that two undergraduate student government members should have been disqualified from voting on an Israel divestment resolution because they had once taken a trip to Israel sponsored by pro-Israel organizations.
"The Obama administration received clear notice more than five years ago that VA medical facilities were reporting inaccurate waiting times and experiencing scheduling failures that threatened to deny veterans timely health care — problems that have turned into a growing scandal.
