The Corrupt Bargain

Detroit’s bankruptcy, a rogues’ gallery.

Detroit has long been run by criminals. Former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, currently known as prisoner No. 44678-039 in the federal lockup at El Reno, Okla., ran an outright criminal enterprise out of City Hall, and was subsequently convicted on charges ranging from racketeering and extortion to bribery and fraud. He managed to make sewage even dirtier than it is, taking at least $1 million in kickbacks for contracts in the city’s water department. He also signed off on an odd and probably illegal deal to borrow money to make up for city’s habitual underfunding of its pension system, thereby creating a cascading series of problems that remain with the city and have complicated its attempt to restructure its affairs in bankruptcy.

This sorry tale features almost everything there is to hate about governance in these United States: rapacious public-sector unions, a feckless city council that apparently had no idea what it was signing off on, Wall Street banks looking to benefit from political maneuvering, promises of casino revenue, and lawyers — lots of lawyers. That and a mayor with two dozen felony-corruption counts now on his curriculum vitae.

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