The Ford boys want to run Toronto like a business, right? This is a classic business technique: the bait-and-switch.
I think running a city like a business is a fundamental ideological flaw. It's not a business, nor should it ever be.
I'm not opposed to the idea of Ford cutting some 'gravy', but I think the way he went about it is entirely wrong. Many city departments are pretty bloated, and I do agree that something needs to change in that department. However, in my opinion the way he should have gone about it is to locate the inefficiencies, reduce them (either by procedure change, staff levels, or the way contracts get awarded), to give a total amount of reduced expenditures. Then, given that number, you cut revenue to match it. For example, if Ford had found $300 million worth of inefficiencies and cut them, that may not have been enough to eliminate the vehicle registration tax entirely, but would have been enough to reduce it (disclosure: I think that is a good tax, and I don't think it should have even been touched, I'm just going with what Ford wanted to do).
Cut expenses first, then reduce the revenue to match, not cut revenue and then try and find enough expense cuts to balance the budget. The conversation should have gone: "Ok, I have done an evaluation of the City expenses, and I have found this much that could potentially be cut without impacting services. Given that, we can give you an X% tax break." That would have been much more civil and forward thinking than the "Ok, I have just cancelled Transit City, removed the Vehicle Registration Tax, and frozen property taxes. Now, let's find some places where we can cut in the budget so that we don't go bankrupt."