Cities continue to shutdown basic services as the country spends billions abroad on two wars. Just a couple weeks after Oakland announced a plan to no longer respond to calls for such crimes as grand theft auto and burglary, East St. Louis is laying off roughly one-third of its police force as well as part of its fire department.
East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 19 of its 62 police officers and 11 firefighters.
One officer is quoted as saying that he will be the only officer on duty during the night shift.
There appears to be a complete disconnect from reality in Washington as Congress continues to gush billions of dollars while cities are suspending or curtailing basic services.
Source: STLToday
They make 174,000.
The congressional salaries are not that high. Most have to maintain two homes. The Senate is already becoming a billionaire’s club so paying them 250000 a year does not other me. I read East St. Louis was reinstating the laid off police officers.
Red states don’t offer healthcare, subsidized housing, good public schools ,libraries, etc, etc,. Everything is privatized. They don’t have much to pay for. If one is disabled and unable to work and has lost their insurance, they need to head to a blue state or Minnesota where the benefits are till high.
Swarthmore Mom, aka or fka Swarthmore mom,
You gotta have some money to offer services to begin with. Thats why the cops and everyone else in government is or are being cut. The only thing(s) that I am aware of not being cut is congressional salary’s (salt) and graft. Wall Street is still grafting as usual. I was asked recently to sell securities for a name brand house. If I did that, I would only go to an island and do it.