Bloomberg Now Proposing Tax Hikes

First he floated the idea of significant cuts in spending and slashing the city workforce. Lost amid that if the fact that he's floating the idea of a 15% increase in taxes.

Note the timing.

Not only did he wait until after the election to announce the doom and gloom news, but he waited until after he signed the term limits extension law into effect. Do you really think that if he had made those announcements prior to the vote on term limits in the City Council it might have changed things? Do you think if he dropped the tax bomb on the city before the election, some folks might have seen things differently?

Perhaps. What is undeniable is that this is all too little too late.

The reason that the city is in the mess it is because it has been overspending for years on programs and city workers that it cannot afford. When times are flush, it isn't a problem, but times were predicted going sour for more than a year (or 8 if you count the moment that President Bush came into office and the economic swoon after 9/11), there wasn't enough of a belt tightening.

The same problems can be seen across the Hudson River in New Jersey, where profligate spending is still out of control despite all the warning signs on the horizon.