John Murphy didn’t stay long.

He boarded the earliest flight to Washington.

He had a long road ahead of him if he wanted to secure that Senator seat.

He had to win over discerning donors in Washington and deliver dozens of stump speeches across the vast rural heartlands of Pennsylvania.

But the heart of it all was still in Pittsburgh.

So he left Pittsburgh in Leo’s hands.

Leo had to complete the application process for the Pittsburgh city bonds before Murphy returned, whether with good news or bad.

「Pittsburgh City Hall, Second-Level Basement.」

The elevator doors opened, and a blast of dry, cool air washed over him.

This was the Office of Management and Budget.

Leo strode down the long, narrow corridor.

He was no stranger to this place.

For the "Revitalization Plan Phase II" budget, Ethan Hawke had practically worn a path to their door.

In the end, Leo himself had to come down three times and slam his fist on the table before the budget was finally approved.

But today was different.

Leo glanced at the weighty document in his hand.

If this five-hundred-million-US-Dollar Pittsburgh bond proposal was to legally land on Moretti’s desk, it had to go through an unavoidable legal procedure.

It required the personal signature of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Without his signature, the draft proposal was, in legal terms, nothing more than a worthless piece of paper.

A frosted glass door at the far end of the office was shut tight.

Leo pushed the door open and went inside.

The room was a maze of filing cabinets. At its center sat a middle-aged man.

Blake Finch.

Director of the Pittsburgh Office of Management and Budget.

He was a typical technocrat: thinning hair, thick-lensed glasses perched on his nose, and an old-fashioned Casio calculator often in hand.

Leo walked up to Finch’s desk, leaned on it with both hands, and looked down at him.

"Blake, put those trivial matters aside for a minute."

Leo lowered his voice.

"I’m issuing city bonds."

The tapping of Finch’s fingers on his calculator instantly ceased.

He looked up, glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention to their conversation, and slowly rose to his feet.

"Mr. Mayor, I think we should talk somewhere else."

Finch pointed to the closed frosted-glass door in the corner—his office.

The two entered the office, and Finch locked the door behind them.

He turned, crossed his arms, and looked Leo straight in the eye.

"Alright, Mayor. How big are we playing?"

Leo tossed the thick, pre-prepared file onto Finch’s desk with a dull thud.

"Five hundred million US Dollars."

Finch pushed up his glasses and instinctively reached for the file, but his hand froze the moment he heard the number.

"How much?"

His voice trembled, his pupils contracting.

"Five hundred million US Dollars?"

"Mayor, do you misunderstand what ’five hundred million’ means? That’s more than three times our city’s total annual capital expenditure. What are you planning to do? Tear down City Hall and rebuild it?"

"Read the proposal, Blake," Leo said, ignoring Finch’s shock and tapping the file’s cover. "Don’t be so quick to say no."

Frowning, Finch skeptically opened the thick file.

His eyes scanned the charts and figures as his other hand habitually fumbled for the calculator on his desk.

"According to the Pennsylvania Local Government Unit Debt Act, which is Title 53, Section 8022 of the Comprehensive Code..."

Finch muttered, almost manically, as he flipped through the pages.

"A local government’s non-electoral debt limit is 250% of its borrowing base."

His fingers danced across the calculator keys.

"The borrowing base... We need to calculate the total revenue from the last three complete fiscal years."

"Deducting special appropriations and trust interest... the three-year average, which is the borrowing base, is approximately seven hundred million US Dollars."

TAP. TAP. TAP.

Finch pressed the multiplication key hard.

"Times two hundred and fifty percent." 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

A number appeared on the screen: 17.5.

"The legal debt ceiling is 1.75 billion US Dollars," Finch said, looking up. "Pittsburgh’s current outstanding debt is around six hundred million US Dollars. That means, theoretically, within the legal framework, we still have about 1.1 to 1.2 billion US Dollars in borrowing capacity."

Leo looked at Finch. "So, this bond proposal is within the limit. Five hundred million US Dollars is less than half of our remaining capacity."

SLAP.

Finch snapped the file shut and tossed it back to Leo.

"But it’s still impossible."

The rejection was swift and absolute.

"Mr. Mayor, just because the law doesn’t explicitly forbid you from jumping out a window doesn’t mean you should do it."

"The theoretical limit is 1.1 billion, but that doesn’t mean the market will buy in."

Finch pulled a thick volume titled *Municipal Finance Law* from a shelf behind him, expertly flipped to a specific page, and pointed.

"Mr. Mayor, I think you need a lesson in basic finance."

Finch held up a single finger.

"The bonds proposed in this plan are general obligation bonds."

"This means the Pittsburgh City Government borrows money from investors by pledging its ’full faith and credit’ as collateral. In other words, we would be mortgaging decades of future revenue from property taxes, business taxes, and even parking fines."

"We typically use this method if we need to build roads, repair bridges, or cover a massive deficit. That’s because roads and bridges don’t generate revenue on their own; they have to be supported by the entire tax base."