A tale of two speeches

Yesterday, Mayor-elect Vince Gray delivered a speech in which he laid out the District's bleak financial future. A 2011 budget gap of approximately $188 million and a projected 2012 gap of $345 million means that city officials have to severely trim the budget.. While Gray said that every option remained on the table, he was very clear about one point -- tax increases will only be considered as a last resort. Gray promised that District residents would not "pay one single dollar in tax increases without first assuring them that we have scrubbed the budget and found every last dollar in savings first."

Seems pretty clear that tax increases aren't in the offing any time soon, right? Not for the Post, whose report on the speech made it sound like tax hikes were a first, not last option.

[Continue reading Martin Austermuhle's post here at DCist.com.]

Martin Austermuhle blogs at DCist. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.