San Francisco Insanity

Every time I think I will not see something crazier come out of California I am proven wrong.

That goes double for when it comes to San Francisco. Insanity seems to rule there.

The latest example is a recommendation by a panel established by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors to pay $5 million in reparations to each of the city's Black residents "for the decades of harm they have experienced".

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/san-frans-reparations-committee-proposes-5-million-each-longtime-black-resident-total-debt-forgiveness

It does not seem to matter that California was admitted to the United States in 1850 with the express proviso that it be a "free state" and the California Constitution expressly prohibited slavery from the  beginning of existence as a state.

"...Neither Slavery nor involuntary Servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State."

The panel on reparations is also proposing that all African Americans receive supplemental income to bring them up to the median income for the area (currently $97,000) for at least 250 years.

I am not sure where the 250 years comes from? That is longer than the United States has even been in existence.

Should you have a hard time in believing any of this, I have included a direct excerpt from the report. 

Source: https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/HRC%20Reparations%202022%20Report%20Final_0.pdf

The panel on reparations also proposed wiping out all debts associated with educational, personal, credit card and payday loans for African American households.

To be potentially eligible for the $5 million payment applicants must be at least 18 years of age and have identified as Black or African American in public documents for at least 10 years.

In addition, to receive the reparations the applicant must meet at least two out of eight other criteria.

These criteria include:

Being born in San Francisco between 1940 and 1996 and with proof of residency in San Francisco for at least 13 years,", being a descendant of someone enslaved before 1865 or "personally, or the direct descendant of someone, incarcerated by the failed War on Drugs."

Left unsaid in the panel's report is how much all of this will cost and how the city of San Francisco will pay for it.

I saw one report that indicated reparations would cost $50 billion. San Francisco's entire city budget for this year is about $14 billion.

However, money is quickly becoming a scarce commodity in San Francisco.

The Hoover Institution recently published a report on the financial challenges that San Francisco faces.

Since 2019, San Francisco lost 6.3% of its population. No major U.S. city has ever seen as large a population loss in such a short period of time.

The big problem is that those who are leaving San Francisco are the ones who have been paying the bills.

The city lost $7 billion of household income in two years even after taking account of those who moved into the city in that period.

The office vacancy rate is 27%. It was 4% in 2019. Empty office buildings could mean the loss of over $200 million in property taxes alone.

San Francisco has publicly stated that it is expecting a $728 million budget deficit over the next two fiscal years.

Source: https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/12/19/sf-faces-728m-budget-deficit-over-next-two-fiscal-years/

All of this is BEFORE any consideration of billions of dollars in reparations.

A rapidly declining tax base.

A proposal to spend billions of dollars on reparations.

What could go wrong?

Nancy Pelosi's daughter recently stated that her mother had summoned priests to her house to rid her San Francisco home of evil spirits in an an exorcism after a man allegedly attacked her husband there last year.

Has anyone considered the possibility that these priests might be needed for something a little larger in scope?

Why are people leaving San Francisco in droves?

Yes, the housing is expensive and taxes are high. However, that has been the case for a long time.

The Hoover report explains the deeper problems behind the exodus from the city.

Rampant drug use. Drug gangs. Homeless camps. Lawlessness. Calls to defund the police and abolish prisons. 

Detroit’s fall was primarily driven by the relocation of the US auto industry to southern, right-to-work states, where auto producers, including foreign firms who build autos here, have avoided the union conflict that was endemic in Detroit. San Francisco’s decline is driven by absurdly bad local economic policies. How bad? As some city blocks have been taken over by drug gangs selling fentanyl in open-air superstores (think of an opioid version of Costco, without the membership card), city supervisors have spent their time talking about defunding police, abolishing rent, abolishing prisons, and demanding that if Whole Foods is to be allowed to develop a grocery store in a vacant building in the city, it must include affordable housing.  

San Francisco's problem might not be due to evil spirts.

However, the policies that San Francisco have been pursuing, along with its talk of paying reparations, are not those that are consistent with a sane and stable society.