Mike vs. Mike

He notes a 22 percent reduction in his own administrative budget and challenges the city’s other elected officials to cut their spending, infuriating Council. But most important, after weeks of declaring that he wouldn’t negotiate publicly with the unions, he calls out the four union presidents by name. “It is time for leaders to lead,” he says, “not follow the screaming masses.”

He will fix Philly’s long-term economic woes, he says, by insisting that the unions begin paying their fair share for benefits. He even announces that he’ll submit an application to the Pennsylvania Employee Retirement Commission, asking it to declare the Philadelphia pension fund “severely distressed” — the highest level of woebegoneness defined by state law, granting him greater latitude to make changes.

Afterward, firefighters union president Brian McBride accuses Nutter of declaring “war.” Nutter skeptic Uri Monson, executive director of PICA, the state’s budgetary watchdog group, gushes: “Did you hear him say how he’d save the city more than $600 million in 20 years? When was the last time you heard a Philadelphia mayor talk about making decisions based on what they’ll mean 20 years down the road? I don’t think we’ve ever heard that. I loved it.”

The budget was a political winner, leaving City Council with absolutely no issue to rally citizens behind. Libraries, rec centers and fire stations — the trinity of budgetary third rails — are treated as inviolate, according to the citizenry’s wishes. While there is still a problem of perception — as great as full transparency is, did Michael Nutter just lead Philadelphia, or take orders? — for now, the important thing is that Nutter showed up, when it counted, as the man we elected. And maybe there is a lesson here, to help everyone through his tenure: Michael Nutter isn’t a reformer, but he can act like one when public pressure and political calculation align, conspiring for our betterment, to draw out his better nature.