Photo by volcanojw.

No matter how bleak the District’s financial outlook remains — right now, a $600 million deficit is staring us in the face for 2012 — when Mayor Vince Gray finalizes his budget proposal in a few months, he’ll slap a generic title on it that’s supposed to speak to his executive priorities.

Over the last decade, the names given to the budgets have reflected the purpose, personality and priorities of the sitting mayor. From 2001 to 2006, when Mayor Anthony Williams was in charge, his budget titles spoke to his desire to more equitably spread the city’s newfound progress to all of its residents. “Building a City That Works for Everyone” came in 2002, while 2006 was “Lifting All Communities.” The years 2004/2005 shared the name “Education, Public Safety and Opportunity For All,” while 2007, which would have been Williams’ last budget, welcomed “The Citizens’ Budget: Affordable Housing, Education, Health, Jobs, Libraries, Youth.”

The names of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budgets started as faithful reflections of his personality (“Moving Foward Faster” in 2008, “Getting the Job Done” in 2009) and ended up as diplomatic surrenders to the oncoming recession (“Meeting the Challenge” in 2010 and “Maximizing Efficiency” in 2011).

So where’s Gray going to go with his first budget as the city’s chief executive? Appealing to his campaign theme of “One City” would seem like an obvious approach, but Williams already did that in 2003 with “One City, One Future.” Additionally, whatever name Gray slaps on his FY 2012 budget can’t completely ignore the financial mess the city finds itself in. (He’s certainly not going to be able to offer anything “for all” like Williams did, at least.) In the spirit of helping him along, we brainstormed a few ideas of our own:

• “No Money, Mo’ Problems”
• “It Was Fenty’s Fault”
• “Some Education, Public Safety and Opportunity for Most, Conditions Permitting”
• “Nothing a Commuter Tax Can’t Solve”
• “There Has To Be Someone We Can Sue For $600 Million”
• “At Least We’re Not Illinois, New Jersey or Nevada, Right?”

Leave any additional suggestions in comments — we’ll happily forward a sampling of the best budget names to Gray’s office.