Democrat Utopia of Los Angeles Goes Broke on May 5th

The rating agency Moody's just downgraded the city of Los Angeles to a notch below "WTF?" as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa continued his economic jihad (I love using that word) against private enterprise.

The downgrade primarily reflects the continued erosion of the city's historically better-than-average willingness and ability to quickly rebalance its budget mid-year. This is a particularly important rating factor for Los Angeles since its balance sheet has typically been relatively weak for the rating level. The downgrade also partly reflects the likelihood that the city's general fund reserves at the end of the current fiscal year could be materially weaker than we had previously expected...

The city's Democrat leadership appears to be a model both for the state government in Sacramento and President Obama. Their game plan: spend like drunken liberals; empower public sector unions to rape taxpayers; tax the hell out of everyone; and create vast new bureaucracies to hamstring the private sector.

In fact, the L.A. City Controller says the city could run out of cash by May 5th.

As the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power seeks a hefty taxpayer rate hike, a Daily News review of salary data shows the average utility worker makes $76,949 a year - or nearly 20 percent more than the average civilian city worker.

More than 1,140 of the utility's employees - or about 13 percent - take home more than $100,000 a year. And General Manager Ron Deaton, who is on medical leave, rakes in $344,624 a year - making him the city's highest-paid worker.

...the total cost per full-time employee in fiscal 2007 was $142,400 a year including health care, death benefits and disability, workers' compensation, medical services, employee health benefits and training...

In the middle of the worst budget crisis in Los Angeles history, one department is thriving without mandatory job cuts, furlough days or loss of the perks they've come to enjoy. In fact, thanks to a new contract approved by the L.A. City Council in December, most of its already well-paid workers will get salary increases over the next five years. Which department is it? It's the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP)...

If there's one thing history should teach us, it's that public sector unions need to be outlawed. Unlike unions in the private sector, which are organized to share in the legitimate profits of free enterprise, the public unions exist only to suck the blood of the taxpayer.

Put simply, the public sector unions and their Democrat sycophants have declared war against taxpayers. And it's time for taxpayers to fight back.