Within your means.

Or learning what gubmint cheese really tastes like.

I'm listening to morning talk radio and there's a kerfuffle ensuing over the most recent budget proposal by our elitist illustrious mayor.

You see with the economy in the tank, people are spending less and not surprisingly business revenue is down and as a result tax revenue is down. And now the city finds itself in the increasingly common position of not having enough money. Funny how that works.

What's our statist mayor's answer to this dilemma? Why raise taxes of course. It's worked so well before, right? Umm... yeah... And this from the guy who ran on "No New Taxes". I'm beginning to think that when a politician says that he means that everything has had a tax on it at some point in the past and they couldn't think up any new tax ideas. Sort of like movies in Hollywood, or shows on TV.

The new budget is rife with "revenue enhancements". Which is PC speak for tax increases. There's a rant about PC speak, but that's for another time.

Anyway, they've been getting the reactions from many of the city councilors and for the most part they have not been... happy, would be one way to put it.

What's got me going is one of the councilors supporting the budget had a wonderful quote. He said something to the effect that he's all for the revenue enhancements because "... the city has to have a way to pay for the things that the people want".

Umm... No.

Government should be there to arrange those things that individuals can't arrange for themselves, like roads, crime deterrence, fire fighting, water, sewer, basically those things we like to call essential services.

Government is not there to act like the kindly grandma that spoils the kids while the parents are away.

Just because "the people" want it, doesn't mean the government is required to provide it.

Hell, I want a personal 19 year old Swedish massage therapist with at least one Nobel Prize in a hard science. I'm not picky, physics, astronomy, math, any one of those.

The government, in general I think, has lost the plot on what is essential services and what isn't. And as a result we end up with a city that has a city hall budget that tripled between last year and this and at the same time laid off over 200 police and fire. But hey, when your house is burning down, you can rest easy knowing that the Mayor's assistant deputy aide to the floral adjunct designer has his own secretary office manager.

As unpopular as this may sound to those of you with pet government projects, part of the job of a responsible, adult governing body is to know when something isn't affordable or even should be provided by them. This idea should apply to any level of government, from federal down to that Home Owners Association Nazi down the block.

But then I guess people being the way they are, we all love our little empire building.