NYC walks the road to Detroit

  The election of ultra leftist Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York was both lauded and excoriated. His politics are so far left even the Leftist New York Times notes, like a cat lapping up a bowl of cream, that he's only appointing Leftist activists to city positions.
  So like Obama whose fantasy budget has never been accepted by even his own party, de Blasio has submitted a budget that speaks more of unicorns than practicality.
  The New York Times decided to report that de Blazio's budget is $73.9 billion which is a 6% increase.
  With few cuts. And no new revenue.
  It includes new spending on housing, on education, on new social services.
  Where the figures don't add up, the NYT delicately refers to the deficit as "gaps," which city officials explain will be handled by "tapping unused reserve funds and by cutting billions of dollars from the cost of union health care plans." It's a bit hard to believe any of those union members are going to accept cuts to their health care. Are they moving them to Obamacare? We'll see.
  From the NYT:

And [the budget] includes a long-term commitment to pay $17.8 billion in compensation, including some retroactive wages, to the city’s labor unions over a period that will stretch into the next decade.

  The budget is balanced this year for de Blasio because Bloomberg left a surplus.
  Starting 2015, NYC will run a deficit.
  So "reserve funds" are not to be held for those darned rainy days, apparently, but rather spent on "retroactive "raises for teachers and city workers and subsidizing more housing.
  Of course, these wage increases are put into effect for the next ten years, including whoever next holds the office and half the next term.
  I'm not a big fan of Christie, but I will never forget the community meeting where he confronted firefighters with the fact that Corzine and his predecessors had repeatedly over promised monies that the state cannot afford, always putting off the responsibility for pensions and salary increases.
  This is typical of administrations cozy with unions: they promise more and more money, better perks in the out years when they won't have to be responsible to make sure those bills are paid.
  From 2009, New York Times:

Bolstered in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s spending, the average New York City employee cost the city $107,000 a year in wages, health insurance, pension and other benefits in the 2008 fiscal year, an increase of 63 percent since 2000, according to a new report.

  In 2011, take, for example, Sampson Dwumah, who is a sewage treatment worker in NYC. He makes almost $350,000 a year.
  And he's not the only one. In fact, the top engineer in "Environment Protection" makes almost $800,000 a year in salary and benefits.
  The list is long, available here. And don't forget that's 2011.
  I often think of Bill Clinton's narrowed eye and sly legalese, "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is."
  With Leftists, any word, idea or action is relative to whatever he wants it to be.
  Can you say Detroit?