Budget and Cuts

Front page of the Advocate this fine Sunday mornin' talks how the board of finance cut the 3% increase for raises scheduled in July. Yesterday, the school board was talkin' the same cuts and what it would mean.
Now as a tax payer, I don't want to pay any more either, especially in this strange economy.
Why do I call it strange?
Well there is money out there, but businesses are cutting positions and others are raising prices (like at the grocery store, you notice).
The economy appears to be coming back up except of course for jobs and then there are those millions that we are giving to AIG (MY Money!) for bonuses.
So the cost of surviving has gone up (food is survival as far as I am concerned), so I can understand Unions not wanting to negotiated again. Actually when the whole thing started, they did negotiate and agreed to extend the contract another year with out anything else (at least the UAW did). This would mean that any action the city would take to reduce that would be certainly lost in arbitration.
Actually I understand, Joe Tarzia, the master mind of much of this, ranted at a city office support person (not any one with authority) for 20 minutes cause people in a completely different department had not given him info he wanted fast enough, The man has a loose screw.
I do not believe strong arming people is never the answer. The mayor negotiated with the unions and did get a simple extension. That was in good faith. Trazia's thing, however well meaning for us Taxpayers, is not.