David Gregory, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” challenged Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on his show, asking him about the possibility of a federal bailout for the beleagured city that filed for bankruptcy this week.
“The role of federal government is an obvious question here,” Gregory said on his show, according to a transcript. “The federal government has intervened when the auto companies needed a big bailout. You go back to the 1970s and that famous headline of the New York Daily News when New York was in trouble: ‘Ford To City: Drop Dead.”
Gov. Snyder has said that he will not provide state assistance to Detroit, saying that a bailout isn’t the answer. Detroit is the largest city in the United States after Stockton, Calif., to file for bankruptcy.
“The bankruptcy is about the unfunded portion of the pension liability—which is still significant, I don’t want to underestimate it—but the funded piece is safe,” Synder said on the show.
But Gregory persisted, saying that the auto bailouts handed down by the federal government amounted to much more than the deficit Detroit is facing.
“You had $80-plus billion that flowed to the auto companies when they needed help,” Gregory said. “Now you’ve got a total debt in Detroit of $18 billion. Is there not some money that should be available, even from that initial bailout money to the auto companies, to help the cities?”
Snyder said that bailouts aren’t “the right answer” on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“The right answer is, bankruptcy is there to deal with the debt question,” he said. ”It’s not just about putting more money in a situation,“ he added. ”It’s about better services to citizens again. It’s about accountable government.”
Over the past few decades, Detroit’s population has dwindled from nearly 2 million to 700,000. The unemployment rate is at 16 percent, while the crime rate is relatively high.
“Ultimately... this is an opportunity to stabilize Detroit and grow Detroit,” Snyder said about Detroit’s bankruptcy filing. “The most important thing is not just the debt question. The debt question needs to be addressed... but even more important is the accountability to the citizens of Detroit. They are not getting the services they deserve, and they haven’t for a very long time.”
