Nuts? You don't say!

If it wasn't for the fact that city council is playing with $2.2 BILLION of tax dollars they would almost be laughable.

What a sweet job it must be to run a city. If you run out of money or just want more, you pass a budget that raises taxes. And the suckers that pass for citizens just pay it. If you ever run into a situation where you have more money that you need you just create some new way to spend it.

The largest line item in the 2010 budget is salaries and benefits. If you wanted to cut costs that would be a logical place to do it. But no... council votes 12-8 to keep the status quo and everybody is happy except a few hundred thousand taxpayers. But who cares about them? Right?

Even if you flat-lined the salaries of all city employees, including unionized ones (which will never happen in my lifetime), the costs will still go up because, low and behold, the 2010 budget states that the number of Full-time equivalents will raise from 13,966.65 to 1 4,122.86 from 2009 to 2010. Since 2008 the number of FTEs has gone up by 380.71.

Can you say dumb???