Tax revolt

Giambra and DeBenedetti were both on WBEN's early show (not together. That would have been ugly). Giambra is spinning and spinning, breaking the deafening silence from the 16th floor during the midst of the budget crisis. Craig blogged about it this morning. DeBenedetti is accused of holding out for a county job with the water department in exchange for a "yes" vote. That was Giambra's libelous charge on WBEN yesterday. DeBenedetti said this morning that his vote was never for sale, and that there was never any thought of such a quid-pro-quo taking place. He said that Giambra thought that DeBenedetti was for sale, and that's why Giambra's coming after him now - because he wasn't. I hope DeBenedetti enters the dreaded private sector when he leaves County office. I can't imagine the County really needs any more personnel, do you? I wish Giambra would just take his failed leadership, failed ideas, his city vs. suburb mentality and just go. Leave. Take your indignancy with you. Out. Instead, Giambra says the focus now will be on raising our already-astronomical property taxes in order to pay for County services. Well, la-di-dah. Where's the bottom, Joel (et al?) When do you hit rock-bottom and say, "we can't tax the people of Erie County anymore"? When do you sit and think that maybe - just maybe - some cuts in what County government does are in order. If these guys roll over and decide to give us the penny after all, or if they decide that they'll just maintain the status quo and increase property taxes, they'd better be up for a big fight. They're all so worried about Union workers picketing and protesting in the streets about this 'n that. How cool would it be for hundreds of thousands of just plain folk to protest further tax increases?