Giant Vampire SquidTwo major newspapers just ran the same article and they don’t even know it.

The first is a piece from Gretchen Morgenson in Sunday’s New York Times. It’s about a type of derivative Wall Street banks have unloaded on cities and states across the country called an "interest rate swap." Swaps started as a way for local governments to shield against unpredictable interest rates. But, post-crisis, they’ve become a pure profit-maker for the big banks – paid for with our tax dollars. (To get a really good handle on what an interest rate swap is, you should check out Mike Elk’s piece at OurFuture.org.)

The second piece is a joint editorial from the city auditors of Oakland and Berkeley, written for the San Francisco Chronicle. In it, Oakland auditor Courtney Ruby discusses the difficult choices (read: cuts to services) that city leaders must now make to fill the multi-million dollar budget gap currently on the books.

Okay. Maybe not grounds for a plagiarism case here, but these articles are about the same thing. Consider: This year, Oakland’s budget deficit stands at $4.8 million. Also this year, the city will pay $5.2 million to Goldman Sachs for a swap deal they entered into a decade ago with the bank. In other words, Oakland could completely resolve the current deficit and stave off cuts with the money they’re paying to Goldman.

Dig deeper and the story gets even more infuriating. In 2005, Oakland actually paid off the underlying bonds on which they hold a swap contract with Goldman. But, even though the bonds no longer exist, the city is still required to pay Goldman the annual swap fee.

Goldman Sachs is, literally, doing nothing in exchange for this fee. The bonds – and the interest rate payments associated with them – are gone. So every penny the bank collects from the city is pure profit. And it will stay this way until the contract expires… in 2021. Oakland can’t terminate the agreement early unless they pay the $19 million Goldman Sachs will charge them in penalties – a tall order for an already cash-strapped city.

This story is not unique to Oakland. In the entire Bay Area, there’s an estimated $151 million being paid out in swap fees every year. The nationwide total is estimated to be around $28 billion.

We need to stop talking about which police officers to fire or what schools to close; we need to start talking about ending these bogus swap deals with Wall Street.

There’s already an investigation underway into whether Wall Street banks conspired to rig the deals they made with cities and states. But trying to wade through data on every deal made in every community across the country is next to impossible – and many of the details aren’t available to the public.

That’s why SEIU is calling on attorneys general across the country to publicly investigate the nature of the swap deals in their states. We need to account for every penny of our tax dollars lining the pockets of Wall Street executives instead of funding services in our communities.

We already bucked up and bailed out the big banks when they failed in 2008. We’re still reeling from it. We shouldn’t be forced to do it again – for the next 30 years – while our cities and states suffer.

Reminder: All opinions and statements here are my own and have not been reviewed by SEIU members or staff.