Akin to putting a political cart before the horse, a City Council proposal wants to snag $21 million before knowing what it will be used for.

Councilwoman Kymberly Pine has submitted a city budget amendment to allot $2.3 million to each of Oahu’s nine Council members — nearly $21 million total — toward “bold” homelessness initiatives.

“We need to go big and go bold and provide what is needed,” she said Monday.

Homelessness is indeed a huge problem. The problem here, though, is that taxpayers haven’t a clue as to what the Council’s brave and bold ideas are, since it hasn’t presented them.

This dubious approach harkens back to two years ago, when the City Council passed a budget that included a similar move: $2 million for each Council member ostensibly to tackle district homelessness. Then-Council Chairman Ernie Martin proclaimed: “Every community on Oahu is dealing with homelessness but the particular issues differ by Council district, and the members need to take the lead by coordinating with the community stakeholders and city administration to execute a plan acceptable to all.”

As far as we can tell, however, little has resulted against homelessness despite the $18 million “community revitalization initiative.”

The proposed budget amendment is bad budgeting. Taxpayers first need to hear about Council members’ actual homelessness projects and ideas — before $2.3 million here and $2.3 million there add up to real money with vague accountability.