The Detroit fires: a dicotomy of governmental failure.

Early this past week, a shocking event that many local Detroiters referred too as a "natural disaster" occurred. It was an event that I believe underscores the many failures that the various levels of our government are blamable for today...
What started as severe thunderstorms, quickly turned into a raging fire storm, as downed power lines fell throughout the city, igniting as many as 10 individual fires in different parts of the city, which then spread, and burned 85 structures-many to the ground-in a 4 hour period.
The blame for which something like this could be allowed to happen, is easily spread around, but it all falls squarely on the hands of one governmental agency or another.
The first to be blamed is DTE-the semi private utility company which supplies energy to the city of Detroit and many surrounding areas. (I call it "semi" private, because all energy companies are very reliant on government regulations). DTE's blame lies with the thousands of power lines which fell down that day-many of those lines were reported by residents as being potential fire hazards because they were already hanging so low, but DTE is cash strapped due to their inability (due to governmental controls and regulations) to raise rates, to raise the funds, to make the improvements to their electrical grid that are so desperately needed.
Its been almost 10 years since I lived in metropolitan Detroit-sagging power lines due to age was a problem then, and it will continue to be a problem until DTE is allowed to raise rates so that they can afford to fix and upgrade a system built, and based, on technology developed in the first half of the 20th century.
Second on the list of blame is the city of Detroit itself.
Like most cities these days, Detroit is facing serious budget short falls. As a result, all services were cut-including the fire department. On top of laying off firemen, the city also also "deactivates" between 8 and 12 fire companies daily due to budgets constraints. The result of these cut backs was that what initially started out as 10 individual small fires, turned into blocks of burning buildings because response times were as long as 2 to 3 hours.
Another failure on the list was the 9-1-1 service in Detroit.
Many complained that when they called in, they were treated rudely and with disrespect. Frustrated 911 operators, overwhelmed by the events and other emergencies happening around the city due to under staffing-also related to budget issues-were unable to handle the situation they were presented with.
Defenders of government would say that this is just a sad reality of today's economy, but I disagree.
One of the standing theories about government's role in society is that they are to do things which private citizens and corporations have proved unable to do for themselves. To uphold this role, governments should be prepared for economic downturns. Many corporations do this (see Ford and why they didn't need a government bailout 2 years ago), why can't governments? Why is it that governments have only 2 options when our economy takes its inevitable downturns: raise taxes and/or cut services? (I actually have an idea to solve this problem, but people won't listen to me when I speak of it).


Add it all up and you get a perfect picture of why and how governmental bodies can and will fail: This, perhaps, could have happened to any government, run by any ideology, but it has to be pointed out that Detroit has long been a bastion of Democratic and Socialistic ideals, and has been control by Democratic politicians for the last 100 years, and in that time just about every socialistic program you can think of has been tried there, and they have all failed. The cumulative result of these failures has lead the city to where it is today: financially bankrupt; unable to provide its citizens with basic services, and such rampant corruption that many of its past, and present, democratic leaders are already in jail for corruption; facing prosecution for corruption; or mired in controversy due to suspected corrupt activities.
I point all this out because the same sort of people who have politically controlled Detroit over the last 100 years are now in power in our Federal Government-people like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, and Mrs Clinton. People who believe in 'sharing the wealth', giving to the "poor" without getting anything in return. People who believe in punishing the successful because they make a certain amount of money. These people over step their constitutional and legislative bounds on a daily basis and they, on the heels of the Bush administration (which covertly upheld the same socialistic ideals), will do the same to our nation as their counterparts in Detroit have done to that once great and proud city-lead it down the inevitable path of collapse and destruction.