Metro may be short $116 million, but they’ve got irony to spare.

Yesterday came the news that Metro was considering hefty fare increases to cover a budget shortfall, provoking ire across the region and forcing members of the agency’s Board of Directors to demand that spending cuts be made first. Among those cuts would be 240 administrative positions, 60 take-home cars, a 5 percent raise for non-union employees, and a bevy of outside consultants. Yet today the Examiner is reporting that Metro is — get this — planning on spending $800,000 to hire an outside consultant to propose where cuts could be made.

Apparently the folks at Metro haven’t seen “Dave,” the 1993 political comedy in which Kevin Kline unwittingly becomes president. In the movie, Kline and a friend manage to cut $600 million from the U.S. budget over sandwiches at the White House, thus saving social programs for the needy. Can’t Metro approach the problem the same way? Hell, give us a case of beer, a bag of chips, a TI-85 and a copy of the budget and we’ll set things straight.

Picture snapped by Samer Farha