State bankruptcy bill imminent, Gingrich says

(Reuters) - Legislation that would allow U.S. states to file for bankruptcy will likely be introduced in Congress within the next month, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and a powerful Republican party figure, told Reuters on Friday.

Gingrich appears to be taking a more active role again in politics and has been championing this bill.

Can someone please tell me how it's a good idea from states to default on their debt? Wouldn't the economic ramifications and consequences be huge? Would it really leave the states in any better shape? Would they not be allowed credit for seven years like individuals are not?

When are they going to face the facts that the actions (or inactions in some cases) of the corporations and governments are what have eroded both our tax base and our ability to provide jobs for Americans and focus on those issues?

(If this has already been posted...sorry I couldn't find it.)

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Well for me that hopefully means my pension will not be cancelled...Been at my job over 18 years and it would truly suck if my state went bankrupt and it would certainly suck for all the people who worked for the state to lose their pensions...

reply to post by chrismarco


That would be terrible, and not to overly worry you, but it seems pensions are still on the chopping block in general, and state and federal pensions are probably among the last remaining ones. What a mess..

Silly me forgot the link... www.reuters.com...

When these states file bankruptcy the first thing they're going to do is renegotiate the pension deals with state employees. I live in California and that seems to be the issue that the media wants to harp on. Is it the fault of greedy blue-collar workers that the state is broke? I doubt it. It sure seems to be the central theme of the spin they want to put on it though.
Am I a tax-payer - yes.
Am I a state employee-no.
Do I have friends and relatives who are state employees-no.
When it comes to labor vs. management I'm always on the side of labor.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


My hope is that would grandfather people who are currently working for the state and nix all new employees.

reply to post by jlv70


I'm actually a manager now and was in the union for many years and sat in a pretty high position in my local union. Managers have been furloughed up the ying yang and we have not seen raises for the past three years. I'm fine with the idea of furloughs because my wife works also. The unions have recieved their raises to what amounts to a cost of living raise but I can sleep comfortably knowing that they earned it..

reply to post by jlv70


My view is that our state and federal governments knew damn well what would happen when the snowball effect of shipping jobs out of the country, providing tax shelters and allowing offshore accounts for the wealthy, and allowing illegal immigration would do to the tax base when compounded by all the insane expenses we're incurring in wars of choice. It's common sense and logic that this would be the result.

As for California, there's this from the article, "And California -- a state which Gingrich said would likely turn to Congress for financial help along with New York and Illinois -- said on Friday it has no interest in using bankruptcy to solve its fiscal problems."

Existing thread here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

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