Budget fight flares in Motown

With a conference of consultants and economists developing the strategy to suck more money out of the pockets of working and unemployed Detroiters, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick thought he had all the arguments to make the budget cuts seem reasonable, even inevitable. Yet in the last week in February, his cutback strategy was pushed back--and the opposition focus expanded to a national fight-back program targeting the war budget.

On Feb. 26, over a thousand loud, angry bus riders and drivers stalled the city's announced plan to end nighttime bus service as of March 5.

The bus riders answered a call from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26. People flooded the City Council auditorium, with the crowd overflowing outside the locked-down building. This unity between drivers and riders in militant mass action demonstrated a winning strategy to block cuts that can be expanded.

In a four-four tie vote, the City Council refused to approve a hike in water and sewerage rates for the first time in history. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Depart ment didn't even respond to a proposal presented by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. The WRO's plan aimed to ensure that clean, safe water, a necessity for life, is affordable by charging large-scale users more and low- income users no more than 2 percent of their income.

Also a courageous city councilwoman, Joann Watson, corrected an obvious but intentional omission by the mayor's budget cutters. Calling for equality of sacrifice, the mayor claimed to cut his appointees' six-figure salaries by 10 percent and demanded that all city workers likewise accept a 10-percent pay cut--a proposal unionized workers aren't showing any indication of accepting.

Contractors received letters from the city asking for a voluntary rebate of 10 percent. However, it took Watson to request a report to the council on the status of the city's biggest debts and "that bank bondholders and other corporate entities to whom the city is indebted voluntarily reduce the amounts owed by the city by 10 percent across the board."

According to a report published in the Michigan Citizen (Dec. 16, 2004), "The City of Detroit and its units were due to pay nearly one billion dollars, $831,996,321 on bonds, notes and other debts payable for the year ending 2004, according to its Com prehensive Annual Financial Report for the year ending June 30, 2003.

"Forty-four percent of that amount, a total of $365,795,035, was expected to be spent on interest. Figured into these figures are the library, the People Mover, and various authorities like the Downtown Development Authority."

Just foregoing the interest would wipe out the city's deficit. But even 10 percent is $83.2 million. This sum is more than four times the expected savings from the 10-percent pay cut for the biggest union of city workers, AFSCME.

Cutting the income of the mostly women AFSCME members will only yield $19.2 million for the one-year period July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, according to an internal City of Detroit memo dated February 2.

Experience shows that a local determined struggle against budget cuts is only part of the battle. Already, as resistance grows, the threat of state receivership to impose the cuts has been floated. How can the needs of poor and working people, of youths, students, seniors and the disabled be met when billions of dollars are spent to make war on the world and occupy Iraq?

What about the cities, towns and states that face the same crisis from the same source?

Coalition organizes to feed the cities, not the war

An enthusiastic alliance of community, labor, anti-war activists and progressive City Council representatives met Feb. 24 to call together a National Conference to Feed the Cities Not the Pentagon.

Statistics presented by James Anderson from Employment Research Associates and Michigan State University showed that the Detroit and Michigan budget deficits could be turned into surpluses--just by diverting funding from the Iraq war.

As of March 2004, Detroit lost $429 million and 9,000 jobs. The state of Michigan lost $7 billion and 145,000 jobs. Clearly it is time to demand more instead of trying to make do with less.

While the call is being drafted, organizers will help build the March 18 March Against War, part of nationwide and international protests set to coincide with the second anniversary of the U.S. war on Iraq.

The leaflet issued by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice says: "War In Iraq Hits Hard at Home: In 2004, $429 million of Detroit's taxes went for the Iraq war. That's twice the city's 'budget deficit.' We need that money right here for expanded bus service, smaller class sizes in our schools, more recreation programs for our youth, more and better city services."

The demonstrators will gather March 18 at the Spirit of Detroit Statue on Woodward and Jefferson in downtown Detroit, and march to a rally in support of war resisters. That rally will feature Sgt. Camilo Meija, who was just released from military prison after refusing to return to Iraq. A local demonstration of the Feed the Cities group is planned before the Detroit mayor's budget address in mid-April.