You can say one thing about Mayor David Miller's marionettes on the city's executive committee: When called on to echo a mantra of optimistic overkill and self-satisfied spin, they follow their marching orders to a T.

At several points during Monday's special meeting to rubber stamp this year's $8.2-billion operating budget, I wondered if they were simply lacking in the oxygen His Blondness incessantly claims he's endeavouring to purify with his many green schemes.

But no. It was, as Coun. Mike Del Grande so eloquently described, just a case of "collective euphoric amnesia" orchestrated by their puppeteer, the mayor.

We heard -- like a broken record -- how wonderful a job the city's fiscal fruitcakes have done to balance the books this year and the city is in "better financial shape" than it has been since amalgamation.

"This is the budget Torontonians expect from us," said budget chief Shelley Carroll, unabashedly claiming city staff have made "Herculean efforts" to contain costs.

I guess we'll see how well city staff have taken care of themselves Monday when the province releases its list of public officials making $100,000 or more. I'll bet the numbers have jumped considerably at City Hall.

The Mistress of Double Talk also neglected to mention the pending labour negotiations with the TTC, the police and the mayor's powerful CUPE buddies. Best to leave out the fact that they plan to give away the candy store to ensure our pro-union mayor is not embarrassed with a strike.

"This budget is a stupendous accomplishment compared to budgets of the past," boasted Coun. Howard Moscoe. "In the past council raided reserves with impunity."

The over-the-hill trougher, who undoubtedly considered it "stupendous" that he won't have to give up one perk, free parking pass, taxpayer-funded meal or trip with this budget, conveniently ignored the fact there are no more reserves to raid because they've already been cleaned out to the tune of $1.1 billion since Miller came to office.

2.3% INCREASE?

We also were told -- to the point of near brainwashing -- that this year's tax hike is really 2.3% (the blending of a residential hike of 3.75% and an increase on businesses of 1.25%). That figure is quite "reasonable" and "generally in line" with inflation (currently running at 1.9%), we heard.

"What we charge residential (taxpayers) is a fallacy ... a mug's game," said Coun. Kyle Rae. "We need to own the whole of the tax base, not just the ones who elect us."

Ah yes. It's all of a sudden convenient for the Millerites to remember the businesses in this city -- after years of ignoring the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost to the 905 -- to make their tax argument appear more saleable.

But really, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. As Del Grande points out, Joe Public who owns a house only thinks in terms of 3.75%.

How quickly they forget, as well, that the only reason the property tax increase isn't higher this year is that they've got the proceeds from their controversial new land transfer and vehicle ownership taxes to fill in the gaps.

Which leads me to the best comment of the day. It came from the one-time fiscal conservative Gloria Lindsay Luby.

HER 'SMARTNESS'

She said every day she thanks her "smartness" for choosing to live in Etobicoke instead of Mississauga, where the residential tax increase is much higher this year. Yet, she said, this council continues to get criticism from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) who should instead be persuading their customers to live in Toronto.

"Instead they're criticizing us ... how perverse," she sniffed.

I think it's pretty perverse that councillors like her aren't subject to term limits. Nevertheless, TREB has good reason to be critical.

TREB spokesman Von Palmer said they really need four or five months of data (from the time the tax kicked in Feb. 1), but last month sales in the 416 were down 14% compared to a decrease of 9% in the 905 region. He said that trend has continued so far this month. "One thing is clear, we still have concerns about the land-transfer tax," he said.

Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the real truth is this council continues to get more money from the feds, from the province and from taxpayers' pockets, but they haven't cut one red cent.

"This council is clearly out of control," he said. "It's a relentless tax-consuming beast."