Mayor’s “Business as Usual” Budget an Anticipated Disappointment

Question:

What do you get when you take one pound of persistent problems, shred eight ounces of unimaginativeness over it, and season the result with a dash of fatalistic resignation?

Answer:

The Mayor’s 2026 Proposed City Budget, of course.

In a move that surprised absolutely no one, the Mayor took one look at the structural deficit that lies at the heart of city finances these days and did what he did last year: he punted.

Rather than pursuing imaginative solutions to persistent problems, he opened up the dusty playbook from the previous administration and called in a familiar set of plays:

Not enough money to pave our streets? –How about an increase in the wheel tax?

Not enough cops on the beat? –How about we keep the 800-ish officers who are not on patrol, at their desks pushing paper? (The number doing that is smaller, but still far too large.)

Not enough money to keep the libraries accessible to everyone? –How about we eliminate Sunday hours everywhere but downtown, because the rest of the city doesn’t really matter anyway.

You get the picture…

What is so disheartening about the 2026 proposed budget is that there really is a moment for us to meet here. The Mayor just refuses to do so. Instead, he persists with the same tired and true approaches of taxing, borrowing, and cutting that have become the hallmarks of his administration.

We look forward to the opportunity in the weeks ahead to show the community that another path lies before us. It will require courage; it will require imagination.

It will require us to move well beyond “business as usual.”

NB: Written without any assistance from AI. As if…

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

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