This week current and retired public employees in Detroit agreed to a 4.5% cut in their pensions to help the cash-strapped city make ends meet, while the city agreed to subsidize a stadium for the Detroit Red Wings. David Sirota reports:

As U.S. states and cities grapple with budget and pension shortfalls, many are betting big on an unproven formula: Slash public employee pension benefits and public services while diverting the savings into lucrative subsidies for professional sports teams.

Detroit on Monday made itself the most prominent example of this trend. Officials in the financially devastated city announced that current and future municipal retirees had blessed a plan that will slash their pension benefits. On the same day, the billionaire owners of the Detroit Red Wings, the Ilitch family, unveiled details of an already approved taxpayer-financed stadium for the professional hockey team. [IHT]

The city claims that a new stadium will spur economic development, but stadiums have historically offered lousy returns on taxpayer investment. 

[Photo credit: Jeff Powers, Creative Commons.]