Aaarg!! Politicians!!!

[lordshipmayhem]

So I watch the teary-eyed City Manager going on about all the "service cuts" we can expect because enough of us were able to convince City Council to defer scalping us for more money.

Cry me a river, kid. Taxation is the art of getting the most feathers from the goose with the least hissing, and Miller is no taxation artiste. The geese are mad enough that they might just take a nip out of him and his council droids next election.

First, if you want to make your case for needing more tax dollars, the wise elected official will:
- refrain from giving himself and his fellow elected officials pay raises of any sort
- especially, refrain from giving himself and his fellow elected officials pay raises of any sort
- examine and cut back discretionary office spending, in Toronto's case there are $50,000 per councillor and some spend to the max. Some spend less than a 5th of that.
- look at outsourcing anything they can think of, especially unskilled tasks like garbage collecting, at whatever rate the market will provide
- look at everything the city does, including municipal golf courses (what other city/town has municipally-owned golf courses? Oshawa? Kitchener? Kingston? If they do, I don't know about it) and sell off anything that isn't core to the administration of the city.
- look at all facilities that the citizenry wants the city to provide, and look at how to make them either more efficient or more financially independent. Maybe outsource them, or try to do the same with less staff, or place solar power collectors on the roof - something, don't just keep spending.
- when a hiring freeze is announced, FREEZE HIRING, don't keep hiring like the City has been doing.

That makes Miller 0 for lucky 7.

Instead, Miller and his lapdogs have been devotedly trying to keep all jobs at union rates, kept their hiring levels increasing, have ended up with a record number of staff earning over $100,000, have maxed out their Office Expense accounts, and in general have been spending like drunken sailors - except drunken sailors spend their own money.

They then go to the Provincial and Federal Governments and ask the Provincial and Federal Taxpayers to pick up the slack. News bulletin: there's no such beast as a Provincial or Federal or Municipal taxpayer. They're all one and the same, The Taxpayer, full stop. If the Province uploads the social spending as you're demanding, it will still behoove you to look at municipal spending and cut when and where you can.