More on Judicial Tierney

If you pronounce it right, it's a pun.

OK, nevermind.

Anyway, I wanted to get at another piece of nonsense in Tierney's piece, one not directly related to eminent domain.

The city managed to clear out shops and an office building to make room for a new Lazarus department store, built with $50 million in public funds, but Lazarus did not live up to its name. It has shut down and left a vacant building. Meanwhile, the city's finances are in ruins, and businesses and residents have been fleeing the high taxes required to pay off decades of urban renewal projects and corporate subsidies.

Here's another excellent example of throwing shit on the wall to see what sticks (there's probably a term from Latin rhetoric for that). There are a lot of reasons for Pittsburgh's crappy finances (Here's one take on it from a lefty, anti-ED viewpoint {link probably short-lived, but there's an archive}), but you have to be pretty fanciful to blame a $40M operating shortfall in a $389M annual budget on one-time capital boondoggles. Or pretty dishonest. You choose.