On Friday, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry put forth a theory as to why Detroit inevitably went bankrupt — terminal lack of government.
We’ll do our best to explain.
While discussing Detroit’s downfall, Harris-Perry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean agreed that “you’ve got to have a government to run the place.”
Harris-Perry noted Detroit’s declining population, and in turn its tax base. The population of the city has declined dramatically over the last 10 years.
Mediaite’s Noah Rothman, who calls the MSNBC host’s assessment “delusional,” provides some analysis and facts:
Harris-Perry presents this fact as though former Detroit residents left – estimated in 2011 at one resident every 22 minutes — on a whim without making a cost/benefit calculation as to whether to continue to reside in a city with one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation with a poverty rate of a staggering 40 percent.
Furthermore, since Detroit’s population has fallen below 750,000, it was not legally allowed to collect income taxes from its residents until Gov. Rick Snyder and the state’ legislature reduced that threshold to 600,000 two years ago. The city’s population hovers today around 700,000 residents.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
