I’m in San Francisco for the weekend, visiting family and friends. Everywhere you go, people want to talk about the economy. The San Francisco Chronicle led yesterday with a story about how all of the city departments apparently are eager to swoop down on the city transit system to glom some cash. The Muni is evidently the only public facility that’s making money – or at least, taking in relatively large sums of it each day – and it is therefore perceived as a possible lifeline by other departments starved for cash, including the police and fire departments. A friend of mine who works as a librarian in the main facility says that funds earmarked for her department are similarly in jeopardy of expropriation because the library, while not in budgetary surplus, enjoys sufficient private funding to have at least stayed solvent until now.
It’s hard to believe that the Muni, for all its squalor and seediness, would be looked on as a cash cow. San Francisco itself is looking pretty run down — not so much in the tourist areas, but the neighborhoods. The grassy median of Geary Boulevard, a major east-west artery that stretches from downtown to the ocean, is strewn with trash, and the asphalt is full of cracks and potholes. The locals must be wondering how the streets could have fallen into such disrepair, even as the fees and fines the city collects from motorists have ratcheted into the stratosphere. Where did all of that money go?
Scenes from Blade Runner
BART riders might be wondering the same thing. I took BART from downtown San Francisco to the East Bay yesterday and could scarcely believe how squalid the system had become. The train looked so shabby it could have been used as a set in the dystopian film Blade Runner. The upholstery and carpeting were stained and tattered, drunks and punks were sprawled all over the seats, and a station restroom was out of order. So, evidently, was the Rockridge depot elevator, which failed to arrive after repeated attempts to summon it by an enormous man in a wheelchair.
The State of California is in even worse shape, inundated by a torrent of red ink. Despite the relatively drastic cuts in spending that have been made so far, Sacramento has been unable to close the gaping hole in its budget. It has told taxpayers to hold off filing for refunds, since there is no money in the till to pay such claims. There are probably a half-dozen states in similarly dire shape, although the dollar size of California’s problems dwarfs the rest. California et al. are looking to the U.S. Government for a bailout, but it had better happen soon, since it is only a matter of time before American realize that the U.S. itself is broke.
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{ 4 comments }
San Francisco’s citizens demand inexpensive nannies to watch their children, servant labor to maintain their gardens and houses, staff their restaurants etc etc etc. The city and state governments pick up the tab to house, feed, provide healthcare, educate, incarcerate and otherwise care for the guest workers and huge numbers of non working aliens and citizens. This is what they vote for. This is what they apparently want. A third world nation just adjacent to their driveway. It will be interesting to watch how all of this plays out in the city by the bay when this latest “stimulus” expenditure merely delays the inevitable bankruptcy of the entire state.
Well put TKO.
“Uncle Remus” as Zappa said in 1974 has come to pass 34 years later.
You Reap what you sow…so your greed which you thought was good as long as you were raking in the cash…You never thought greed would turn and now attack you.
Play with the Devil and he will get you…….eventually………always. Nothing to do with religion…just karma or spirituality.
Listen to “Bobby Brown” by Zappa….epitomizes the US of America the last years from 1980….Reagan onwards. How the people ever let this happen….God only knows….I guess a bunch of suckers!!!
So appropoi…….”Bobby Brown goes down.”
The interesting thing about local and state debt is that people are allowed to flee. If the city fathers have spent wisely then a city attracts more people and the debt burden is reduced as the tax base grows. But when the local government blows the money in a wasteful manner, when the ‘people’ don’t see any value for the taxes they are paying, the tax base shrinks as the taxpayers seek a better life elsewhere.
This is actually a great curb on the power of local governments. If they want to survive they have to be prudent.
I don’t see where this has anything to do with greed. It’s more a case of stupidity. No one benefited more from the housing bubble than local communities with inflated tax receipts. Instead of banking some of the windfall in preparation for the enivitable decline in property values they spent it all and more. Now there isn’t anything in the public coffers to help people through hard times.
I’ll tell u were it went. Try police and fire men starting at 65K with full benefits and a pension @ 20yrs. Try, the same people retiring and then being hired back in a second public job.. wash, rinse , repeat. The whole system is corrupt and nobody has any control over it.
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