On April 11, more than 400 people packed the third public Portland Budget Hearing, which was organized by the City of Portland and which left many spilling out beyond the room where the hearing took place. More importantly, for the City Council there was an unexpected critical outpouring from the vast majority who attended. For the first time, the City Council and Mayor Charlie Hales began to lose control over their attempts to sell austerity.

This was in sharp contrast to business as usual. Portland budget hearings are generally tightly controlled, polite affairs. What are the reasons for this movement towards a more charged polarized event?

Like many U.S. cities since the onset of the Great Recession in 2008, Portland, Oregon has faced several consecutive years of budget cuts at the cost of lost jobs and its communities’ livability. While the politicians promoting these cuts said they were necessary squeezes for a prosperous future, they have only led to more austerity in the subsequent years.

Now the City Council and the newly elected mayor, Charlie Hales, are not only promoting more of the same — they are threatening Portland’s citizens with the most severe cuts yet. We have been told that there is a $21 million hole in the city’s General Fund, according to latest estimates.

Mayor Hales has asked each city department to submit proposed budgets with 10 percent less revenue. These include already underfunded housing programs, community centers, funding for parks, after school programs, youth employment services, and many other services and jobs. It is no exaggeration to say that many lives and Portland’s future are being left to precariously dangle in the wind as the City Council goes through its process of demanding austerity cuts.

The myth that Portland is broke and that “sacrifices have to be made” is meant to leave those facing the austerity ax powerless and divided. However, the deficit in Portland’s General Fund is not an accounting problem. It is a political issue.

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