Budget Talking Point (1)–It’s the Economy’s Fault

September 6, 2009 1 Comment

The City’s budget problems are not the fault of the bad economy (actually the worst recession since the Great Depression). They are the fault of the Commission and the City Manager who thought we would always have good times without regard for the certain coming bad times.

Even a return to “normal” times (no real estate bubble and gradual economic growth) would have triggered a crisis. The City’s budget watershed would have happened soon or later–it just so happens that the economic crash caught the City off guard. What counts is the balance between the taxpayers’ capacity-to-pay and the City’s capacity-to-spend. That balance would have been broken now or later.

Filed under Coral Gables, Government

Unknown's avatarAbout Stephen E. McGaughey
Resident of the City of Coral Gables; Formerly with Inter-American Development Bank, Senior Environmental Project and Policy Leaders, Agricultural Economics, Forest Sector Projects and Policies, Country Representative Financing in El Salvador and the Dominican Republic

One Response to Budget Talking Point (1)–It’s the Economy’s Fault

  1. jeannette graham's avatar jeannette graham says:
    September 7, 2009 at 9:43 AM

    We the citizens have allowed OUR commissioners to institute insane pension policies and pay system. We have allowed a bloated staffing and compensation at city hall to continue regardless of performance or the economic realities. We need revisions starting at the foundation – we do NOT need lifers in neither elected nor for hire positions. It’s a recipe for disaster which is exactly what we currenly have.

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