EDITORIAL TOUGH TIMES CAN YOU SPARE A CITY POL A PHONY PHONE TAX?

RATTLE, rattle!

That clanging sound you hear is Los Angeles city leaders shaking their tin cups, pleading poverty and warning of dark, dark times to come ...

It must be election season, with a tax hike on the ballot. Because when politicians warn of tight budgets, they only want one thing -- more.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says we're going to need to delay the opening of new police stations, stop paving alleys and slash budgets for public libraries.

Others, including City Administrative Officer Karen Sisson and City Councilman Greig Smith warn of looming cuts to fire and police services. Sisson suggests that the city could save a bundle by not fully staffing fire stations or slowing the hiring of new cops.

Villaraigosa has even proposed the unheard-of step of taking away some city bureaucrats' take-home cars, including those of 27 of his four-wheeled staffers. City employees might even be asked to take a week off without pay.

All this, of course, is aimed at getting voters to approve Measure S in next week's election.

City Hall wants you to think that if you don't approve an inestimably huge tax hike on all telecommunications devices, there will be no more cops, no more library books, no more fire service, no more Mom or apple pie.

Of course, no one suggests that if Measure S fails, we'll get no more pay raises for city workers that average 7.5 percent a year, no more subsidies for downtown hotels, no more ignoring City Controller Laura Chick's audits that could save L.A. millions.

Those are City Hall's sacred cows -- not the services that taxpayers pay for.

Which is all the more reason voters should ignore city leaders' poor-mouthing and scare-mongering -- and vote no on Measure S. Only this measure's defeat will force City Hall to actually go to work and stop overspending.