Decades of rule from those who only know how to create new taxes and dole out patronage dollars have not improved our city or the lot of our poorest residents. Since the 1970s the Democrats have had a stranglehold on all local power, and every part of Philadelphia except Center City has grown more impoverished for it. We have no word from Council on how we're going to fully fund our pensions, which ended fiscal year 2016 with $4.3 billion in the bank and $11.6 billion in liabilities. Not a word on how we can avoid the fate of Detroit, which went belly-up and in so doing bankrupted an entire generation of public workers. We have no solutions for parents whose only choice for their child's schooling is a failing, dangerous school or to try to move out of the city (if they can afford it). And no sign of a proactive agenda to promote small-business growth in our city, besides Gym's race-baiting of Asian business owners and threatening to have their licenses revoked.