Alabama's Largest County is on the brink of bankruptcy

Tennessean reports:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama's largest county appears headed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, a $3.2 billion mess created by the nation's credit crunch and a colossal, corruption-riddled sewer project.

Politicians in Jefferson County — which has 658,000 residents and includes the state's biggest city, Birmingham — are struggling to find a way out of the jam, but they have mostly abandoned talk of raising taxes and fees after running into fierce opposition at raucous public meetings.