If you blindly believe what the GOP is saying about Detroit‘s bankruptcy, you aren’t doing your homework. You aren’t getting the full story. You shouldn’t pass if this were a class or you shouldn’t get a pass to vote if that’s how we voted. It isn’t, nonetheless from Salon.com’s excellent analysis:

If told, this cautionary tale would likely spark a discussion about revising current trade deals, regulations, public investment and industrial policy in general. That is, it would spark precisely the discussion that the conservative movement and the corporations that fund politicians don’t want America to have. So the right works to make sure that discussion is short circuited by a narrative that focuses the Detroit story primarily on taxes and public pensions.

That is, of course, by design. The less Detroit prompts serious questions about trade policies and the auto industry, the less Detroit can be used as a rationale for changing those conservative, corporate-enriching policies and that industry. Likewise, the more taxes and retirement benefits can be blamed for Detroit’s downfall, the more Detroit’s tragedy can be used as a clarion call by the right to slash both.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/23/dont_buy_the_right_wing_myth_about_detroit/?source=newsletter