Like the song? Pay the fiddler.

I stared at the photo of the moving van taking furniture from the Southern Union building for a long time. The near-empty building, still unfinished and doing nothing for our economy, was to be a savior of the downtown.

Most noted for tying up traffic on Lackawanna Avenue for a couple of years, the building is as empty as the promises of its impact on our city.

I question how we can continue to "plant the seed of economic growth" without a harvest. We continue to lose residents while the "well-fertilized by political rhetoric" garden is seeded using programs like KOZs and taxpayer-funded demolitions. Nothing ever appears to take root in a way that promotes serious economic growth or provides decent wages to a large number of citizens.

How can we continue to borrow when we keep losing? We can't.

The simple approach to solving the problem of credit cards is to stop borrowing. Such is one solution to the city's budget. Our budget is $6 million out of whack. The solution is not to increase the debt load and service. The solution is to cut spending or raise taxes.

Since the mayor has raised his administration's salaries, added positions, continued fruitless arbitrations and refused cost-cutting solutions and income-generating suggestions, raising taxes is the only remaining choice.

If we raise taxes now, there are two benefits. First, we will not increase our debt service. Less debt means more money in the budget.

Secondly, raising taxes will be painful to all. It's time we were all made aware of the actual cost of the Doherty reign. If we borrow yet again, we will face the same reality in a couple of years- with the added debt. The piper will call, now or when this money is used. I say pay now.

I once heard our mayor interviewed on the radio. He stated Scranton will always have a budgetary problem. If that's so, then how can we borrow today against a future with even less residents and less ability to pay?

It's the most unpopular decision, it's the most painful decision, it's the right decision.

Raising taxes is the right decision forced on the taxpayers by re-electing this Spend-a-holic Mayor. The slim majority that kept this man in power is the same majority that is responsible for the position we're in. Doherty played. Now he has to take the responsibility. Either way, we pay.

They got us here. We, the people, will pay the ferryman for the return trip.