Rahm's Magic Budget

The honeymoon is over...not even two days in:

• On his first full day in office, Mayor Rahm Emanuel proclaimed he's already figured out how to cut $75 million from his predecessor's final budget, just as he said he would.

  "These figures are not based … on assumptions of what might or might not happen," Emanuel said. "They are based on the realities that will happen."

  But a look at what Emanuel unveiled Tuesday shows much of his planned spending cuts are estimates based on marching orders the new mayor gave to his staff. Other proposals lack specifics. So it remains to be seen whether they'll pan out by year's end.

Daley proposed and passed entire budgets for years with all sorts of speculative numbers - supposed cuts that became cost overruns, pie-in-the-sky revenue predictions that never materialized, "rainy day funds" that disappeared during sunny years, etc. Our readers have been pointing this out for years.

The fact that the media isn't giving Rahm the play they gave Shortshanks opens up another front that Rahm is going to have to quell in his quest to inherit and run the Machine.