Swedish Municipalities cut services to Swedes to cover cost of taking in migrants

Eight out of ten civic authorities in Sweden will have to slash basic public services provided to residents who have paid their civic taxes for years in order to offset the astronomical cost of taking in, housing, feeding and caring for thousands of uneducated, illiterate, unemployable, welfare-dependent migrants.

The survey found that 46 percent of authorities reported they have had to draw up plans to drastically reduce disability services, while half said that they would be forced to make serious spending cuts in individual and family care to save money, SVT News reports.

Göran Eriksson, the city manager of Bengstfors, a small town in Western Sweden told SVT that his municipality would not be able to fund the increasing costs of social services and welfare programs for immigrants without help from the federal government. Costs are increased due to the fact that many of the migrants refuse to learn even basic Swedish and interpreters hve to be employed.

Bengstfors faces a 2.4 million budget deficit for the current financial year and hopes to decrease that deficit by slashing social services and maintenance costs.

“The situation is strained, and we now are forced to take some effort after the council has decided on a new budget for 2020,” said Eriksson, adding “I think there are two reasons. We have been generous and received many new arrivals, but basically, it is also a demographic problem. We have an aging population and the municipality is shrinking.”

To reduce the cost of supporting Sweden’s continuing acceptance of overwhelming numbers of immigrants, state organizations tasked with promoting for migrant integration will be merged with those focused on welfare and employment. Money budgeted for subsidizing healthcare for schoolchildren and preschools will also be slashed. Street light usage is to be reduced by 20 percent and snow plowing will only occur when large amounts of snow are on the road.

Back in Voice of Europe reported that the city officials of Bengstfors had reached out to the federal government for a financial bail out because the municipality was facing bankruptcy having taken in too many welfare-dependent migrants.

Stig Bertilsson, a local politician of the center-right Moderate Party, explained the problem to reporters, saying: “Costs in municipalities that have received new arrivals have continued to be substantial even when government revenues have stopped. This creates a large negative hole in the municipal cash register.”

As Charles Dickens’ character Wilkins Micawber would have said, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence – result happiness; annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence – result misery.

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