Democrat Denial in Troy

Tonight is the big night for the Troy City Council, when Chappy Campana's unwieldy bunch will have to pass whatever it is they believe constitutes a budget. The big question on everybody's mind is how the Dems will deal with the whopping pension payments that Troy and other municipalities are going to be forced to cough up. Even in the face of a 10% tax increase, Chappy's crew has been strangely silent about the underlying problem that caused this predicament, that is, the fact that New York's pension system is costing taxpayers too much money to maintain in its current state (here's some background information on the problem). We all know that John Brown's handlers keep a pretty tight leash on him, so we don't expect much there, but the other Dems should be doing more than just lobbing Harryhate around. Why not use the occasion to lobby Democrat Assemblyman (and Majority Leader) Ron Canestrari and Democrat Tim Gordon to support Tier V legislation, or even better, a move to a guaranteed contribution system? For all their charges about Harry Tutunjian being "insular" or "arrogant", the Democrats are the embodiment of both with their belief that this same problem won't happen again. Then again, foresight hasn't really been the forte of the current Dem field; after all, did Chappy and the gang really think they'd get away with several dozen counts of election fraud? The same lack of forward-thinking by the Campana crowd that's keeping prosecutors busy fails yet again to deal with the real problems facing taxpayers.