In our August issue, Polk Laffoon IV detailed the 2010 budget fiasco. The bickering and infighting. The eleventh hour passage. When Cincinnatians elected a majority-Democrat council this year, giving the boot to Leslie Ghiz, Wayne Lippert, and Chris Bortz (all of whom were proverbial thorns in the mayor's side), it appeared things might be different this year.

They were. The council passed the budget yesterday, earlier than required, with minimal bickering. The Enquirer quoted the mayor as saying:  Let this be the model for how we operate on every issue for the next two years.

Let's hope it is. This budget was balanced. Wonderful. Next year, it may not be so easy without a big $14 million check from a local business. What's most worrying is the personell costs. Cincinnati spends 90 percent of its budget on personnel and benefits. That's huge. By comparison, Louisville spends about 60 percent ...

As most of you probably know, Ronald Reagan was known as the Teflon President. Reagan survived an assassination attempt while in office, but he earned the bulletproof nickname for another reason: his ability to prevent controversy from tarnishing his image. Coined by Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, the moniker wasn’t a compliment, but ultimately, it proved to be accurate. Although Reagan took heat in his time for an unbalanced budget and the Iran-Contra affair, he has become the father of the modern Republican Party.

Here in Cincinnati, we have a Teflon politician of our own, Mayor Mark “Wasn’t Me” Mallory. The old line about Reagan was that he could “do almost anything and not get blamed for it.” Mallory has put a slight twist on that formula. His political strategy is to “do almost nothing and not get blamed for it.”

Mallory is a master of political dodgeball. Any time a controversy ...

Today is decision day for Hamilton County commissioners: To raise taxes or not to raise taxes? To give out the property tax break as promised years ago, or reduce that rollback to keep the stadium fund in the black?

We appear to have our answer.* Commissioners Portune and Monzel have announced a plan that, they say, will keep the fund solvent and give property owners the full tax break. The only problem? It only solves the deficit for one year. The commissioners anticipate a nearly $12 million deficit for 2012. With $16 million from the sale of the Drake hospital to UC Health and approximately $1.8 million from various other sources (including a mysterious "add 1% growth," according to their predictions), they hope to have a $6 million surplus in the 2012 fund. Fantastic! But what about 2013?

Unfortunately, there will be no Drake hospital to sell in 2013. Money ...