Hey DC! Philly Needs a Bailout Too!
Hey everyone, remember this bit of news last week:
The bleak economy and overly optimistic budgeting have thrown Mayor Nutter’s financial plan into turmoil, raising the specter of a significant reduction in services and a rollback on tax cuts.
Just three months after his $4 billion budget was approved, Nutter’s administration now says there is a $450 million gap between its five-year spending plan and economic reality, a gap that is likely to grow bigger in the months to come.
“National economic problems have now come to the front doorstep of Philadelphia,” Nutter said at a news conference yesterday in City Hall.
“Everything, everything, is on the table, including future scheduled tax cuts,” the mayor said later.
We only need $450,000,000! That’s a lot less than $700,000,000,000.
Can we have it on the the same terms, no strings attached, no oversight, to do with what we will? Surely our reputation (pdf) is as good as Wall Street’s. Probably a bit better, come to think of it. We could do a lot with that here.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:10 am
[...] I wrote in September that Philly needs a bailiut too, our deficit was estimated around $450,000,000; it has since grown far worse, leading to [...]