The Fishwrap Speaks Up
After weeks of contentious bitching from the public sector unions over the city's budget, the Enquirer, which frequently dwells in the real world, finally spoke up.

"One good measure of the extremism taking center stage in this debate was a comment by Diana Frey, president of Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees (CODE), that she’d “rather be a laid-off municipal employee than a private sector worker.”
It appeared to signal that the unions would rather see hundreds of their members jobless than give any ground - or compromise, in the best American tradition - on the power they have accumulated.
And it seemed to epitomize the contempt that some in the privileged and pampered public sector feel toward those who actually make the economy run and supply the tax dollars for their ever-expanding demands."

The Cincinnati Enquirer has felt the sting of shifting technologies & lack of revenue due, in part, to the slagging global economy. They have had a part in contributing to the more than twice the normal rate of unemployment we suffer today.
If people are not working and if they, and the people who are in fear for their jobs are not buying, the government's revenue stream of income & sales taxes is going to dwindle. The municipalities of Ohio are required by state law to have balanced budgets from year to year. Unlike a private company that can take on debt to maintain operations in the red while waiting on better days, the city can not.
Why the city's labor unions cannot grasp these simple economic realities is bizarre. The FOP president was hauled out of City Council's chambers screaming and hollering by a policeman that she apparently represented. Kathy Harrell is certainly not a good spokesperson for the Cincinnati Police and her boorish behavior is not doing their reputation well in the public eye.
Councilwoman Laure Quinlivan pointed out that the only city in Ohio paying more for police than Cincinnati was Columbus and that the citizens of that community had voted to raise taxes to keep their safety personnel intact. Nothing is stopping Cincinnatians from putting a similar measure on the ballot. She also pointed out that municipalities that had laid off safety personnel had usually hired them back as economies had improved. Harrell never got to hear that part as she had been evicted from the meeting for her childish temper tantrum.

Fishwrap story here.