Memories this week of the sanitation workers strike 40 years ago in Memphis has me thinking of how the struggling economy has been affecting the lives of folks. El Presidento Bush, the lamest duck, has been quacking in the wind for the last 7 years while Americans finish the only economic expansion in the history of the United States where real wages did not increase. To be followed by a deepening recession.
Quack on Mr. President. Quack onto your red carpet like a Peabody Hotel duck and into the elevator and take it to top floor were you are safe and sound from the likes of having to deal with the problems that Americans really fear. They fear unemployment. They fear inflation. They fear our loss of standing in the world. They fear the fall of the dollar. bin Laden. Just another nutball with a grudge. He doesn't live around the corner where the deepening recession lies.Kansas City recently passed a budget for the 2009 fiscal year. They had to slash approximately 55 million dollars from the original budget offered to the council by the city manager because the city simply isn't taking in enough money to meet our needs.
How do cut you cut 55 million dollars from a budget? You draw a line through it. It seems simple, and it is. You draw a line through it. Just like at home when the money gets tight. Movies? Draw a line through them. Dinner date? Draw a line through it. New wardrobe? Line. New computer? Line. Depending upon the size of the cuts needed, and the fiscal difficulties you might be having, you just draw a line through it.
If things are real bad you have to draw a line through your mortgage payment. Hopefully, you've drawn lines through other things, of less importance than your housing, before you get to the mortgage payment. But what else could you, if forced to, draw a line through? Education? Recessions are the best time to be in school; as the job markets are usually dampened. Food? Let's hope not.
So what did the city draw a line through?
Overtime. Typically, in any budget that the first thing to go as salaries often constitute the largest component of any budget. And they should. If it's not about the people, then it's about something other than the people. What do you want to stand for?
The city also drew a line through the eternal flame on the top of Liberty Memorial. The flame is actually a light cast through a steam vent which results in the flickering nature seen at night. The flame was turned off the very next day after the city passed its budget. Turning off the flame was symbolic, as was the flame.The Mayor's professed priorities for the budget were 4 things: streets, codes, cops and kids. If the Mayor has learned anything in 10 months, it's how to use a sound bite. That said, there were some budget items related to the aforementioned items that didn't get funded. Some kids summer programs didn't get funded. Some police officer positions didn't get filled. Streets? Well, if there's less money in the budget for street I don't see how they are going to improve.
This process could work the same way with our billion dollar monthly military budget for Iraq. Want it to go away? Draw a line through it. Need a pen?