Houston Mayor John Whitmire says city is 'broke' after decades of overspending that has stopped them from being able to pay firefighters

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/texas/article-13245311/Houston-Mayor-John-Whitmire-says-city-broke-decades-overspending-stopped-able-pay-firefighters.html

The Mayor of Houston says the city is 'broke' after overspending for decades.

Democrat John Whitmire, who was elected in December, gave the bleak warning at a City Hill meeting this week where he proposed a five percent cut across all city spending to alleviate the cash-flow problem.

'I think we can all agree that we're broke,' Whitmire said, before proposing the planned cuts. 'This gives us a chance to discuss the financial picture of this City. It is broken! It was broken when I got here, ' he said.

America's fourth largest city is spending more money than it's taking in, leaving it with a $160 million deficit, according to FOX 26 Houston. Experts say the problem has existed for years, but COVID handouts from the federal government helped mask them.

'COVID really silenced the conversation because we got so much money from the federal government that we were able to make our budgets work, but really, this problem started 20 years ago, almost a quarter of a century ago, with the pension funds,' John Diamond, Center for Public Finance Director at Rice University, told KTRK.

Former Mayor Sylvester Turner, who just left office in January and presided during the pandemic, falsely claimed he was leaving the city with $420 million surplus.