City of Broken Promises: "It was only in later years that I realized how sad and ashamed my mom must have been for breaking the promise she had made to me. She had no choice in the matter; there was simply no money to waste on that kind of entertainment. We were barely getting by as it was. She made the promise to me when times were relatively good and she was getting plenty of overtime, and she had made the mistake of assuming that the status quo would continue indefinitely. She was mistaken, but the mistake wasn’t malicious. Things just...didn’t turn out like we expected. But it was years before I really forgave my mom, and I never did get that day-trip to the amusement park. It remained a bitter seed in my heart for a long time afterward.
The same dynamic is now playing out in towns and cities across America: promises were made to then-current public-sector workers -- years and even decades back -- that cannot now be met."
RTWT.
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