Media

Wall Street bankers, bad decisions made by elected officials and the Great Recession should be blamed for contributing to Detroit's fiscal crisis -- not the pensions of workers and retirees.

Walmart has gotten a lot of bad press this week over news of an Ohio store holding a food drive for its own workers, who were unable to buy Thanksgiving groceries on the retail giant's paltry wages. The store managers deserve credit for their thoughtfulness, but wouldn't it be better if Walmart simply paid its workers enough to feed themselves?

Thanksgiving time at Wal-Mart is the public relations gift that keeps on giving for the labor movement.

Declining revenue, a drop in employment and large, risky Wall Street deals are the real causes of Detroit’s bankruptcy, according to a report by Demos, a liberal public policy organization.

Pension debt gets a bad rap in Detroit, but it isn’t the true cause of Detroit’s financial problems, said Wallace Turbeville, author of the Demos report.

Pension fund liabilities are not to blame for Detroit's descent into Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, according to a report released Wednesday by Demos, a public policy advocacy group.

Detroit's bankruptcy was caused by a decrease in tax revenue due to a population decline and long-term unemployment, “not an increase in the obligations to fund pensions,” said Wallace C. Turbeville, a Demos senior fellow, and the author of “The Detroit Bankruptcy” report.

On Wednesday, Walmart workers called out or walked off the job at seven stores in Dallas, according to OUR Walmart activists, the group that has been organizing strikes and protests against the company. The company says that these were not independent actions but the result of activists being bussed between different store locations. [...]

Walmart is coming under fire for shortchanging its own employees.

Come Black Friday (which for many big retailers has become a two-day affair starting on Thanksgiving), Walmart will again be facing strikes and protests from workers upset with the corporation's low pay.

The best policy measures are those that solve two or more problems at once. So consider this idea: Let's tackle Washington's revenue challenges through tax hikes that mainly hit suburbanites and incentivize urban living. 

The need for more revenues is clear enough: federal taxes are near a 60-year low even as the Baby Boomers retire, China rises, infrastructure crumbles, and deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. Enough said on this point.