Life in "Progress" City

You may remember a few weeks ago when the Cincinnati mayor responded to warnings of decreased city revenues by saying

"Who knows what the number will actually be?" he said. "The number is a projection. We get forecasts all the time."

Well the "actual" numbers are rolling in and guess what? It sounds a lot like old Gordon warnings.

It's a bad time to be Cincinnati's top budget official.

Finance Director Joe Gray is the one who, with help from economists at the University of Cincinnati, put together a budget that projected the city's income tax collections would go up this year. The tax is the biggest single source of operating money the city gets, and the budget counted on $238.7 million - up by 3 percent, or $7 million.

Those projections were wrong. That 3 percent up turns out, so far, to be about 8 percent - or $15 million - down.

With other funds expected to be down, too, the city faces a $20 million deficit this year and as much as a $40 million shortfall in 2010. Gray's boss, City Manager Milton Dohoney, presents his ideas for cuts and/or ways to generate new money to City Council today. Dohoney already asked department heads to lay out what a 5 percent cut would mean. He has promised no increased fees or taxes this year.

The kicker is the headline of this story

Tax drop caught city off guard

Really?

You mean to tell me all those smart "progressive" city leader types had no idea a revenue drop would occur despite 1) a collapse of the housing market 2) a national unemployment rate approaching 10% 3) business relocations to business friendlier environments.

Yeah I can see how they would be caught off guard.

What's so "progressive" about being terminally idiotic?