LRT Sucks … Money: PATTON

And, as usual, we have no guarantee they won’t be back for more. As a matter of fact, the guarantee is in the other direction – they will almost certainly be back for more. After all, what’s $155M here; $177M there between friends? Budget? What budget? How many billion are we over-budget now?

They’ve learned the same lessons that OSEG has. If Council has allocated a set amount of money to you, it’s really just a suggestion, a kind of starting point. Once you’ve burned through it, just head back to City Hall and they’ll be glad to borrow more money they don’t have and can’t afford to top up whatever they gave you at the beginning.

They’re like the kid whose parents furnish them with an unlimited credit card and pay the bills without question. The kid learns nothing about finances or money management and the parents end up cutting other expenses like food, shelter and transportation so they don’t have to say no to their spendthrift kid.

This will, of course, not end well but it’s not going to be our current crop of city councillors who will have to deal with the financial shortfalls that will be created because of the unsustainable debt that will handicap future councils and forestall their spending choices.

Council could say no to some of these money requests but that’s not their nature.