Aldercreatures Talk Shit Again

What a bunch of goofs:

• Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) agreed that there is “a lot of merit” to complaints about the raid on long-term reserves. But, he said, “Where is there a source of income big enough to fill the [$520 million] hole? There isn’t any. So we are in a hang-on mode. We have to hang on until things get better.”

That hole didn't make itself overnight Ed. It took years of mismanagement. And that "hang-on mode" you keep yapping about? We didn't notice you hanging on when you voted yourself a 6% raise and a 5% raise for your staffers and an increase in the aldermanic "discretionary" fund to $1.3 million that most of you seem to use to pay off family members, buy cars and rent office space in buildings you already own.

• That won’t happen anytime soon, warned Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th), the mayor’s floor leader. This spring, taxpayers could face another body blow when an arbitrator rules on the new police contract.

  “Next year, buckle up. I don’t care what happens to the economy between now and then. None of these indicators are gonna get back to a point where we don’t have to make more cuts and have more savings and have more debate on where we’re gonna find the money,” O’Connor said.

The teacher's contract was barely expired when they got 4% raises for four years. If the police and fire contracts had been settled as quickly, we wouldn't have been having any discussion whatsoever on any of this. But Daley insists on treating first responders like shit and then is surprised when they feel the tiniest bit of resentment at being asked to "sacrifice" in the face of spending sprees and aldermanic splurges, not to mention Shortshanks finding all sorts of cash to buy up Bensenville properties, fund construction projects, and increase the size of the handouts to certain leeches.

You aldercreatures want sacrifices?

• With the Chicago Police Department already operating 2,000 officers-a-day short of authorized strength, the budget uses federal stimulus funds to add just 86 officers, 30 of them for the CTA.

  That’s nowhere near enough hiring to solve a manpower shortage that Police Supt, Jody Weis fears will get dramatically worse when as many as 1,000 more officers retire next year.

They better hope that those unpaid salaries are the only sacrifice we end up making.