"Top Obama administration officials visited Detroit, Michigan Friday to give their benediction to Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr's plans to use bankruptcy proceedings to slash city workers' pensions and health care and sell off art from the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The administration delegation, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama's chief economic adviser, Gene Sperling, came bearing gifts, albeit paltry ones. Of the headline figure of $300 million to be allocated to Detroit, itself a token sum, a mere $100 million is to come from the federal government.
This will mainly take the form of previously allocated aid for the demolition of buildings and "blighted" homes—the chief request of multibillionaire developer and Quicken Loans owner Dan Gilbert, who is heavily invested in Detroit land and buildings and aims to transform the city center into a haven for the wealthy. Tens of millions more will be made available for hiring police officers and installing security cameras throughout the city.
Orr, the unelected front man for Wall Street, announced that none other than Gilbert himself will head a new panel on "blight elimination," presumably overseeing the distribution of the federal funds.
Friday's "Detroit Summit" was aimed primarily at providing political cover for local and state officials, Democrats and Republicans, and an assortment of "community organizations" and trade union officials who are collaborating in the bankruptcy scheme. It was a photo op intended to endow the plundering of the city and its working-class residents for the benefit of the banks and bondholders with a veneer of "renewal" and "progress."
Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers, the city unions and the AFL-CIO are lobbying behind the scenes for a share of the spoils from impoverishing workers and retirees, gutting city services, and selling off public assets from DIA masterworks to the city water department and Belle Isle.
Friday's event underscores the fact that the Obama administration sees the Detroit bankruptcy as a model for similar attacks throughout the country, just as its 2009 restructuring of the auto industry sounded a national tocsin for wage- and benefit-cutting.
Among the topics not mentioned during the summit, at least publicly, was Orr's announcement the day before of plans to scrap the pension plans for city workers, turning them into 401(k) stock market investment schemes, while slashing benefits for retirees. Cost-of-living adjustments are to be eliminated for pensions that currently average only $19,000 a year for non-uniformed workers and $30,000 a year for firefighters and police.
Nor was there any reference to Orr's plans to eliminate the retiree health care program, sending retirees onto Medicare (if they are over 65) or Obama's private insurance markets (if they are under 65). With enrollment in Obama's insurance exchanges set to begin tomorrow, the anti-working class essence of his health care overhaul is evident from the fact that Detroit officials see it as an opportunity to slash health care expenditures by $120 million a year.
The looting of Detroit is epitomized by plans to sell works from the Detroit Institute of Arts, located across the street from Wayne State University, the site of Friday's "summit."
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