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The Big Bluff
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
The Big Bluff
Confused about the Doomsday budget, or "Plan C?â It's simple: Nutter says he'll close all the libraries, lay off 1,000 police officers, and shut own our courts if Harrisburg doesn't pass the legislation necessary to tinker with our sales tax and pension payments.
But nobody believes he's going to do it.
But he says he will: which lead the City Controller to take his plan seriously enough to say the city
can't possibly implement it â which everyone already knows.
Everyone, that is, who's following this stuff closely. All week, I've been getting emails from out-of-town friends asking, "Is your mayor really going to close all the libraries?"
"No," I write back. "I don't think so."
So why, they ask, did they just read that he would?
Because local media â despite, I think, having a pretty good idea that the permanent implementation of Plan C is unlikely at best â has become part of the Big Bluff.
Maybe it's not their fault â if Nutter says he's going to close all the libraries and sack a thousand cops, it's a reporter's job to report that.
At the same time, it's hard to read articles about the "Doomsday" budget every day and see so little critical questioning of whether the plan â which hasn't been approved by anyone yet â is more than an elaborate game of chicken.
One notable exception is It's Our Money's Ben Waxman, who finally declared last week: "Plan C is a bluff. There, I said it."
Could it be that part of the reason Nutter isn't called out on his bluff is that we want it to work?
But surely, if we know it, and Nutter knows it, then Harrisburg knows it too. So are they in on it? After all, the more compelling Philadelphia's case, the easier it is for legislators from elsewhere to justify to their own constituents a vote to help us out.
But there are two problems with the mass bluff â if, of course, that's what it is.
For one thing, not everyone gets it. And the police officers and librarians and such watching this drama unfold probably aren't making popcorn for the show: I imagine they're scared.
For another, it paints the situation as a false either/or situation: either Harrisburg passes our plan or it's fiscal doomsday.
Seems to me, though, that six months ago there were a lot of other ways to balance our budget. Nutter did it, at one point, with property taxes; others devised ways to balance it with hikes in wage and business taxes.
Yes, the idea of rehashing a new tax plan to cover the budget shortfall seems crazy â but so does everything else right now.
And I'm getting tired of telling everyone to disregard what they read in the news.
[...] heard the hand-wringing. And then you’ve heard it again. And there’s a good point there: If we can all agree [...]
Isiah, look up the PA Supreme Court decision Mostrangelo v. Buckley It says that cities can't add new taxes (which it distinguishes from fees) mid budget year. Folks who would like to see a different mix of taxes generally hoped a meltdown would give the city chance to try to overturn this PA Supreme Court decision but its been upheld as good case law by dozens of subsequent appelate decision since 1969. Mastrangelo has even been cited in Supreme court cases in other states like Maryland or Connecticut. To suggest that the city had even a long shot chance of overturning it a bold example of wishful thinking.
Seand - very interesting, thanks for the info.
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