While many know that Nashville ranks as one of the worst cities in America for high per capita pubic municipal debt, what is often not know is that Nashville has an enormous hidden debt. That hidden debt is not debt that shows up on a balance sheet but is the unfunded retiree health care promises. An article appearing in Frobes magazine dated Jan. 29, 2019 found that Nashville was the fifth worse city in America for unfunded city retiree health care promises.
The following table shows cities with the largest difference in
reported vs. total unfunded retiree health care promises, or hidden
debt.
This is bad. It needs to be taken seriously. The amount of reported debt makes us the second worse city in America but this hidden debt is just as real.
As our school continue to get worse, as crime increases, roads go unpaved, employees go without pay raises and essential services suffer, we continue to handout corporate welfare and whistle past the graveyard. We continue to look okay but we are in denial. Much of the growth is the result of corporate welfare. We are continuing to grow and tourism is booming but the growth does not pay for itself and it puts more pressure on infrastructure and creates new problems and more demand for expanded services. If we should have another flood like 2010, or another great recession like 2007, or lose a sports franchise, or if Nashville should find itself as no longer the favored city for tourism, we could be facing a crisis. It is more important than ever that we elect to public office fiscally responsible people.
We are in a much worse financial situation than those cities to which we are often compared such as Charlottesville or Austin Texas which are not on the list. We are in worse financial shape than Atlanta or New Orleans.
There are progressive Nashvillians who would like to make Nashville the San Francisco of the South. We may not be there socially yet, but we are already there fiscally.
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