In nixing hopes for the province to start living up to its obligations and resume funding of half the TTC’s yearly operating budget, Premier Dalton McGuinty said this: “We’d always love to be able to do more whether it’s transit or health care or education and the like but you’ve got to live within your means according to the circumstances for the time.”

Does the premier exist in an irony-free bubble? The dude is overseeing a record setting $20 billion+ provincial deficit and he’s got the balls to go around pontificating about living within your means? How does he do that while maintaining a straight face?

Normally I wouldn’t chide a politician for running a deficit, even an unprecedentedly large one, during the kind of economic times we have seen over the last 18 months. It’s classic Keynesian counter-cyclical spending. Increase it during an economic downturn; decrease it when things turn around. Any deficit you incur can then be paid down when revenues start rolling back in with the burgeoning economy.

But to have the temerity to muse aloud about frugality in others, especially when it comes to a municipal government that just balanced its budget because the province mandates that municipalities must balance their budgets regardless of the economic situation, is simply beyond the pale. It’s like some profligate, drunken, deadbeat dad who comes up short once again with his child support payments, telling the ex-wife and kids that they’ll just have to suck it up and tighten their belts to get by. I’d always love to be able to do more, he slurs. Help you pay the rent, buy groceries and a new pair of shoes for the kids but, hey, you’ve got to live within your means according to the circumstances for the time.

Oh, that’s alright, dad. It’s the thought that counts.

Well fuck you, Premier Dalton McGuinty, you hypocritical, patronizing prick.

Let me remind you again that the TTC funding you can’t seem to come up with is not even yours in the first place to withhold or bequeath whenever you see fit. It is an arrangement that’s been in place since before you were even born and only came to an end with the slash and burn ethos of your predecessor’s predecessor in the late 90s. It is an agreement that you promised to reinstate when you took office in 2003. It is a debt you owe not some gift you can generously bestow. So stop acting like we’re asking you for some favour. We’re not. We’re simply suggesting you stop welching on a deal.

And local politicians already in office and those out campaigning for a spot in the fall? Stop enabling the premier, helping him tar the city you are supposed to be serving. Cowboy up, as they say, and make a stand. Call the premier out for not holding up his end of the bargain and demand that he start doing the right, honorable thing.

— blood boilingly submitted by Cityslikr