The City of Toronto launched its 2014 budget debate Monday and, with it, the start of the silly season of political spin, bamboozlement, obfuscation and outright lies.

Your best survival guide might be this approach: proven liars are prone to lie. So, beware the budget claims of the mayor.

And remember, 2014 is an election year, a period that triggers an avalanche of campaign palaver.

Months ago when city staff started contemplating the numbers for the 2013 budget Mayor Rob Ford made it clear he wasn’t prepared to support a tax increase greater than 1.75 per cent. Staff proceeded with that mandate.

Then Ford repeated an old chestnut. He still wanted staff to cut at least 10 per cent from the land transfer tax; that way he can tell voters he has started to fulfill his promise to do away with the tax altogether.

Now the land transfer tax will raise upwards of $350 million this year. Cut that amount and staff has to cut services or find efficiencies to replace the lost revenue. So, city manager Joe Pennachetti balked — as he has since Ford came to office in 2010.

Savvy bureaucrat that he is, Pennachetti and finance staff have pursued a carefully-scripted course to protect the land transfer tax. More than a year ago he presented council with a chart showing a future pursued by mayor David Miller and one that Mayor Ford wanted to adopt. Pennachetti didn’t name the mayors, but the inference was clear.

If you add revenues and keep spending like Miller did, that is unsustainable. But if you reduced spending and also reduced your revenues, that is also unsustainable, the chart showed. Better to retain the revenues from the land transfer tax, like staff advocate, and reduce spending like Ford wants. That would lead to fiscal nirvana.

That made such great sense that council adopted the approach and this has led the city closer to fiscal reality. City council started balancing the budget without going up to Queen’s Park for money or digging into reserves in a big way or using up all the surplus funds from the previous years.

There was one problem. Ford had promised to abolish the land transfer tax — much the way he ended the vehicle registration tax — and said he could do it without affecting any service. Ford started backing away from a full cut and asked Pennachetti to try for a 10 per cent cut. Ford also made the same pitch to budget chief Frank Di Giorgio.

Both men said they would look at it. Both said it would be highly unlikely.

On Monday, Ford, in effect, called them liars. Pennachetti promised the 10 per cent cut, Ford said. Then he pursued a greater fib — one that even the biggest Ford supporter can’t possibly swallow.

Remember the Scarborough subway. Council voted in favour of the subway, but only if property taxes jumped half a percentage point in 2014, another half in 2015 and 0.6 per cent in 2016. The money is earmarked for the subway. To drive home their point, council, and Ford, approved a motion that money could not be diverted away from the city budget to pay for the subway.

Ford squirmed, claimed that the increase would be only a quarter per cent, and then had to vote in favour of the half a per cent tax hike — to deliver a subway win.

Well, don’t you know it: the mayor now says the proposed 1.75-per-cent increase for 2014 must include the subway tax; and a cut in the land transfer tax of 10 per cent.

The cut in land transfer tax requires a 1.5-per-cent property tax hike to replace the revenues. Add half a percent for the subway and the total hike is 2 per cent — already over the mayor’s 1.75-per-cent target — and we have not touched the costs of the nearly $10 billion in city services, including police and transit.

And Ford claims staff agreed to that — which they didn’t.

And says this has always been his position — which is nonsense.

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And that city councillors have turned into reckless spenders overnight; as soon as council stripped him of his powers the gravy train pulled up to city hall.

Nobody ever accused this man of being acquainted with the truth. He knows no shame. He knows a brilliant political strategy to rally the gullible.