Monday, June 13, 2005

Bill White calls self 'fiscal conservative'

I swear I am not making this up. Our honorable mayor is on the record calling himself a "fiscal conservative."
Mayor Bill White, meanwhile, said he is launching initiatives to help the city -- particularly areas of northeast and southeast Houston that have been "leapfrogged" by new development -- capture a greater share of the single-family housing market. "I don't want, nor do most people in this community want, to tell people where they can and can't live or how long their commute should or shouldn't be," White said. "One person's sprawl is another person's dream house. "On the other hand, as a fiscal conservative, I'll tell you it is much more expensive for us to provide transportation services, water and sewer services and everything else if somebody lives twice as far away."

You've got to be kidding me. First of all, Mayor, these areas aren't even in the city, so it costs the city nothing for those people to get water mains, sewer lines and roads. Now let's take a look at the Mayor's "fiscal conservative" credentials, courtesy of the real fiscal conservatives over at blogHOUSTON: *He's got a fiscally conservative $100,000 budget for outside legal expenses to fight Proposition 2's revenue cap. Yep, this "fiscal conservative" is spending tons of money to fight a tax cap. *Safe Clear, originally designed as a fiscally conservative revenue grab, has become a fiscally conservative money pit, running 600% over the original fiscally conservative budget. *He wanted to drop a fiscally conservative $2 million for a fiscally conservative African-American museum. *He paid Continental Airlines a fiscally conservative $85,000 to teach fiscally conservative telephone manners to other fiscally conservative City employees. *His fiscally conservative police chief wants to spend $700,000 on fiscally conservative police badges. I think they're made of platinum and studded with diamonds or something. Fiscally conservative diamonds.

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