Every San Diegan wants their city government to get back on the right track. Fortunately, most San Diegans realize the way to fix city government is not to give it more money, but to insist on reforms to well-documented waste in the budget and unaffordable pension packages for city employees. Indeed, for years voters have wisely called on city leaders to reform city pensions, cut wasteful spending and open city services up to competitive bidding. Unfortunately, city leaders and city labor unions have spent years delaying, dodging and derailing reform in city government. Now, the politicians and labor unions are desperate — and are asking taxpayers for a bailout with Proposition D. Prop D would raise city taxes by a half-billion dollars — at a time when many San Diegans are already struggling to make ends meet. Worse, Prop D gives city politicians a “blank check” tax increase with no guarantees on how the money would be spent. That’s why leading taxpayer advocates and government watchdogs all oppose Prop D. To try to lure voters into supporting this massive tax hike, city politicians and labor unions are saying simply “trust us.” Their campaign advertisements go to shameful lengths — threatening layoffs to police and firefighters. In this regard, Prop D is one of the most misleading propositions to make the ballot. While Prop D is being sold by city politicians and city labor unions as “restoring” vital city services, not a penny of the increased tax is earmarked for important programs such as police and fire services. To the contrary, with the city’s annual pension payment increasing dramatically each year, you can expect increased tax revenues to be diverted to the city’s financially-troubled pension system rather than to restore city services. The pension and retiree health-care funds are more than $3.4 billion in debt — and the true annual cost of retirement benefits last year was more than $370 million — or roughly two-thirds of the city payroll. These costs are driven by unaffordable pension benefit packages awarded to city government employees over the years — a problem that Prop D fails to solve. City employees can retire as early as age 50, can “double-dip” by receiving their full salary and a full pension allowance during the last five years of their city service, and receive free taxpayer-funded healthcare for life — among other perks that you will be hard pressed to find anywhere but our city government. San Diegans do not receive these lavish benefit packages, but under Prop D they are now being asked to pay more during a historic economic downturn to pay the bill for them. In this regard, Prop D is essentially a “pension tax” that will be used to service unaffordable pensions and benefits granted to city employees over the years. Prop D’s proponents shamefully tout “reforms” as part of their ballot arguments to convince voters to approve the tax increase. However, Prop D does not require that any financial reforms actually be implemented. Moreover, several of the “conditions” included in Prop D are weak and outright misleading. While proponents claim they have already made cuts, the truth is virtually all of the positions eliminated over the years were vacant. When proponents claim they have reformed pensions, the reality is they have made only modest changes for new hires — and left the lion’s share of pension perks untouched. While they claim to embrace managed competition as part of Prop D, they refuse to commit to actually bid out any services. City politicians know the “conditions” in Prop D are simply provided to help sell a tax increase to voters. That’s why Prop D contains no concrete targets for actually saving money for city taxpayers. Without concrete guarantees that fiscal reforms will be implemented, the city of San Diego will continue to waste millions of taxpayer dollars each year. And without reform, it won’t be long before city leaders are back again asking for more money with another tax increase. No on Proposition D. — Carl DeMaio is a member of the San Diego City Council representing District 5.