The Chutzpah of Pam Iorio

Everyone with a basic knowledge of the legislative process understands all budgets contain financial line items of financial statements. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio submitted a budget to the Tampa City Council with no line items. The City Council knew Iorio wanted to spend $754 million for city needs. The City Council had no idea what those needs were. This is where things take a turn for the hysterical. Iorio's office said they did not put the line items in the budget because they wanted to save money on paper. The City Council wasn't buying that nonsense.

"It doesn't serve any public purpose for us not to have transparency," council member Mary Mulhern said at a budget workshop on Thursday. "The devil's in the details. We need to see the details."

The bogus green claim claimed. Finance director Bonnie Wise got more blunt and said the law doesn't require budgets with line items.

"I was kind of taken aback," Scott said.

Chief of Staff Darrell Smith said they were just trying to save costs. This has to be the worst spin I have heard. Iorio didn't want the City Council to pick her budget apart. Mulhern says at much.

"They don't want anyone to question their appropriations," Mulhern said after the meeting, although she declined to speculate on why that might be. "The fact they didn't want us to see it makes me suspicious."

It is bad when a Democrat is making such a statement about a Democratic Mayor. This takes amazing Chutzpah for a Mayor to submit a budget without financial statements and claim it is a cost-cutting move. Wow.