&quot;pension giveaways&quot;
&quot;crushing city finances&quot;<p>Oh my goodness, look up from your Economist occasionally and read some history. New York didn&#x27;t go broke in the 70s because of lazy union members, but because Wall Street hung it out to dry. California didn&#x27;t bankrupt it&#x27;s schools and parks in the 70s because of unions but because of prop 13. Unions didn&#x27;t kill Detroit.<p>In general, cities bend over to grant ludicrous tax breaks to corporations that then soak up city services and resources, and then bitch and moan when teachers or MTA workers want more than a 3% raise. Union-hostile city managers are everywhere, bringing Flint Michigan-water scandals your way.<p>By your line of argument, having public transportation, or a decent homeless shelter system, or funding public schools &quot;crushes finances&quot; &quot;in a concretely real, dollar-based&quot; way -- i.e. the same zero-sum, deficit-baiting neoliberalist ideology.