Car on fire Flickr/ jenswedin All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes.

The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country.

Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent.

That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen a decline. Meanwhile, costs associated with health care, pensions and virtually everything else continue to explode.

So what are cities doing to make ends meet? Well, one big trend that we are now witnessing is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid of huge numbers of employees.

If you can believe it, 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workers off this year.

Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut back in many areas of the country. The cold, hard truth is that most of our cities are flat broke and things are going to get even worse in the years ahead.