ng the miles of roads they maintain, the numbers of parks they keep in operation and the number of street lights they keep on all night, but they also remove some far flung properties from the property tax pool. It's a delicate balancing act trying to keep the city viable while providing a reasonably decent level of service.
Anyway, there you go. I hope that aids your understanding a bit without being too leading in terms of opinion. There are some (not as fiscally literate as you, since you read this blog) who think running up debt or even defaulting on debt is OK as long as there are no job cuts, pay cuts or reductions of services. The trouble with that is the same as for an individual in terms of credit worthiness... if you default on your debt, getting future credit when you REALLY need it becomes impossible. Just to put it in context, if a state can't agree to cut some public union jobs today and insists on keeping everyone to the point where they have to take on debt and persist till the debt is defaulted on, the next time the economy sours unexpectedly, that government body will not be able to get a loan. Then it won't be whether you cut a job or not, it will be time to shut the lights off and lock the doors... the government is out of business. Not exactly ideal for a whole host of reasons. That's why fiscal conservancy is important all the time. If you fail to plan for the future, the future will have you for lunch.