Again, they have $1B in the current deficit. The have $1B in outstanding bonds. They have myriad other outstanding obligations that won't show up on the balance sheet for 20+ years.
Okay, but relative to their resources, that's nothing. So they can just pay for those things. It's like worrying about a water heater replacement when you make well into six figures. At a macro level, it is obvious that the suburban model itself is not somehow financially unsustainable.
The city budget is $14B. So they need to make a ~7% adjustment somehow, which amounts to less than a 1% tweak to the local economy. That's not a broken system. It's not a ponzi scheme. It just means they should pay their bills and maybe reduce some waste. You yourself said it's trivial for residents to afford to just pay for the deficit.
Strong Towns wrote an entire piece on this: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025-10-27-ground-zero-l...