We have often argued the case that quite soon a major U.S. city or an entire state government will go bankrupt. The politicians running these entities have imposed heavy tax burdens on their citizens while allowing crime, homelessness, and other quality of life issues to become bigger and bigger problems.
As a result, businesses and residents abandon these cities and states in order to be safer and to keep more of their wealth away from greedy government bureaucracies. This out migration reduces the tax base, increases the taxes of those that remain, driving more people out of the state, and the financial death spiral is in place.
The top cities likely to go bankrupt, in our minds, are Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Chicago. Top states with the chance to go bankrupt include California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. All of these entities are facing massive budget shortfalls, crime, homelessness, and other problems and untold thousands of their citizens have been moving to other places, taking their tax dollars with them.
Depending on the latest and lamest actions by their inept politicians, our views on which city and state will go bankrupt first changes month to month. Last month we thought Chicago would go first given the heavy unfunded liabilities it is facing in the next too distant future. Before that we thought it might be New York City when even its mayor, Eric Adams, commented that the current situation in the city was unsustainable, given the burden of caring for almost 200,000 illegal immigrants.
But now, given the total incompetence of the political class in California, maybe that state and some of its dying cities deserve to be declared bankruptcy race leaders. While the state sinks further and further down the drain, the attitudes and actions of its politicians are inane and ineffective in providing good government and good quality of life for its citizens.
Example Number One - Homelessness is a big problem throughout California and especially in its biggest cities. Despite spending $54 billion to try and fix the problem since Gavin Newsom became the governor of the state, the problem just keeps getting larger and larger. Whatever they have tried has been a failure.
But their creativity, and ability to waste taxpayer money, never has any limits. Consider the latest lamebrained idea, you cannot make up this insanity:
The local politicians have decided that it would be a good idea to spend taxpayer money to build a new high rise building in Los Angeles for homeless people living on the streets of the city.
These new accommodations for the homeless population will include views of the LA skyline, a cafe, a gym, a soundproof music room,, a computer room, a library, a TV lounge, a TV in each apartment, a courtyard, and an art studio.
And best of all, the rent will be free or minimal for those that move into this taxpayer funded apartment building.
The building will have 19 stories, 278 apartments.
The total cost will be $165 million of taxpayer wealth.
And this will be the first of THREE similar high rises for the homeless population.
When all is said and done, the three buildings will serve about 700 homeless people.
So state politicians think it is a good idea for hard working taxpayers to be taxed up the gazoo to fund free or near free luxury apartments for homeless people. And can a plan be more inefficient with taxpayer money: dividing the $165 million cost by 700 homeless people means that this program will spend almost $240,000 per person to shelter them.
And what is the motivation for these people to get their lives together and move out to a place of their own? Given all the amenities they will enjoy for free or minimal rent, why try to get their lives back together and leave the homeless population? Common sense is obviously a rarity with California politicians.
Example Number 2 - Of all the major problems facing the state of California and its residents, its politicians continue to waste time and resources on efforts that will make virtually no difference in the lives of the state’s residents:
State senator Scott Wiener is the brainchild of a piece of legislation called the Speeding and Fatality Emergency Reduction Package.
The objective is to require new cars with a speed governor that would restrict a car’s speed to no more than 10 miles over the speed limit.
His nebulous objective is to reduce the number of car fatalities on the roads of the state, higher than the national average.
High homelessness rate, secondary issue. Higher and higher crime rate, secondary problem. High gas prices, high energy costs, high food costs/secondary issues. Let’s work on a stupid solution to a relatively minor problem. More insane priorities.
Example Number 3 - Even when the state’s politicians work hard at producing stupid laws and legislature, they often fail to even get that right. About a decade ago, California became the first state to ban single use plastic bags, bags that many of us get everyday from supermarkets, drugstores and other retail locations.
However, almost ten years later, the New York Times, that newspaper outfit that loves liberal causes like banning single use plastic bags, reported that the program from that legislation is a complete failure. We will not go into the details of why this massive failure happened but let’s just look at how the New York Times summarized the results: “The unhappy results: last year, Californians threw away more plastic bags by weight than when the law first passed, according to figures from CalRecyle, California’s recycling agency.”
Yes, even when they work on trivial issues they get it wrong and pass legislation that makes the given situation even worse.
Example Number 4 - Way too many times we have discussed the many problems facing the citizens of San Francisco:
Higher and higher crime rate.
Higher and higher homelessness rate.
Higher and higher tax burden.
More and more retail stores are leaving the city due to retail theft and danger to employees and customers.
Filthy city streets covered with human defecation and urination and used drug needles.
No wonder we believe that San Francisco is a leading candidate to be the next major U.S. city to go bankrupt. The current mayor reinforced our belief:
London Breed is the current mayor of San Francisco.
She is running for reelection and was recently involved in a debate with other candidates who want to become the next mayor of the city.
Rather than address the real issues listed above, she took time out of the debate time to ask one of her challengers to name three LGBTQ people on his staff and name three drag queens living in the city.
Specifically: “I’d like to ask Mark a question. You were at the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and couldn’t name any LGBT advisers to your campaign. You were at the debate last week and couldn’t name any drag queens on your own. I was wondering if you could — this is an opportunity to redeem yourself. And if you could name three LGBTQ advisers for your campaign and three drag queens in San Francisco.”
Seriously, the city is going down the toilet and this is what she is focused on? Rather than treat every resident as a unique and equal individual, she, like most politicians, would rather play the bigot card, dividing the residents into different camps that can be exploited for personal political use.
No wonder no issue or problem ever gets resolved in the city and state. These folks have no idea how to fix what they broke so they focus on idiocy like playing the “Name That Drag Queen” game.**********************
If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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