We have spent a lot of time recently talking about which city or state will go bankrupt first. That race to bankruptcy court seems to be accelerating as politicians in these vulnerable cities and states are starting to realize that their policies and ignorance are causing financial crises across the country.
However, we will step back from that theme for a few days since political class insanity in other areas has continued unabated and needs to be discussed and ridiculed.
1)For many, many years we have pointed out how inept and corrupt the American political class is when it comes to wasting taxpayer money. The programs and projects they propose almost always fall short of delivering the benefits promised and are almost always more expensive and over schedule than what is promised. From the Big Dig in Boston years ago to the high speed rail line in California that has not come close to becoming a reality, politicians and the government operations they oversee almost always fail.
The latest example of that is in New York City:
According to Sean Hannity, NYC continues to spend more and more on the homeless folks wandering the streets of New York City while never even improving the problem.
Citing official city data, he claims that the number of unsheltered homeless folks in the city rose from 3588 in 2019 to 4504 in 2025.
These are homeless people that are living on the streets, the situation that led almost two dozen of them freezing to death this past winter.
At the same time the amount of taxpayer dollars paid on trying to help the unsheltered homeless rose from $102 million annually to $368 million annually.
Thus, the cost per serving the unsheltered homeless folks in the city went from about $28,400 in 2019 to about $81,700 per person in 2025.
Another way of looking at the numbers is to realize that the cost per unsheltered homeless person almost tripled in six years while the number of unsheltered homeless people actually increased, not a very effective use of taxpayer wealth.
Continuing to do what the city’s politicians have been doing over the past years does not seem to be working. The unsheltered homeless population goes up, the cost of addressing the unsheltered homeless population goes up even faster, and it has gotten to a point where the average being spent on each unsheltered homeless person is actually greater than the median household income in the city which is just under $80,000 per household.
Although not possible, the city would be theoretically better off just cutting a check for about $80,000 a year and giving it to the homeless, unsheltered people which would put them above the median average income in the city. That is how bad the city’s social program for unsheltered people is working.
2)We often talk about which state government or city government will go bankrupt first. But there is also a Federal government agency that might beat the vulnerable states and cities to bankruptcy court:
The U.S. Post Office (USPS) has seen its mail volume decrease almost 50% over the past few years with the amount of first class mail falling 56%.
Thus, it is obviously operating in a declining market as other carriers (e.g.UPS, FedEx, etc.) have taken some of its package shipping volume away from the USPS and consumers and businesses have more and more turned to electronic forms of communications to pay bills, advertise, etc.
As a result, the Post Office recently announced that it will be raising the cost of a first class letter from $.78 to over $.90 besides putting forth a temporary fuel surcharge starting by May to compensate for the recent surge in fuel prices.
But simple economics tells us that much like cities and states that keep raising taxes but losing "customers" (i.e. residents and businesses moving away), the same thing will happen with the Post Office’s raising of postage: more and more residents and businesses will stop using first class mail, reducing the mail volume the USPS carries, reducing the revenue stream despite higher rates, and the financial death spiral is underway.
Knowing the American political class, I wager this is what is going to happen: rather than take bold, and logical steps to make the USPS more efficient, e.g. reducing the number of unprofitable post office locations, ditching Saturday mail delivery, renegotiating salaries with the USPS union, etc., the political class will do nothing and allow the USPS to continue to raise rates, like they themselves continue to raise taxes, the USPS revenue stream will collapse. And the American taxpayer will be forced to step in and subsidize another failing and inefficient government entity within two years.
3)Speaking of politicians and government entities not acting which costs taxpayers big bucks:
The Federal government finally sold one of its vacant and massive office buildings in DC that is expected to save taxpayers at least $200 million.
The building had been vacant and useless for about a year.
Senator Joni Eernst helped push the sale thorough: “After years of working to put empty and expensive federal buildings up for sale, today, the GSA Regional Office Building is officially sold. Even though this building has been vacant, the American people have still been footing the bill. With this sale, we are saving Americans over $205 million and taking an additional $50 million in required updates off taxpayers’ tab.”
Fortunately the sale went through since the Public Buildings Review Board had estimated it would cost $50 million to clear up the building’s maintenance backlog.
This is the good news, finally someone, somewhere in the government realized that some dead use space was better sold off than continuing to suck up taxpayer wealth. But to think this is the only bad real estate investment on the government’s books, consider:
In January, the Post Office admitted that almost 300 of its buildings across the country were either completely or partially unused.
In February, the Department of Agriculture admitted that only one third of its allocated space in its DC headquarters was being used.
And other departments within the Federal government are also paying for massive unused office space as a result of remote working and Trump's downsizing of the Federal workforce.
Millions of Americans are homeless, hungry, drug addicted and without health insurance and yet Washington bureaucrats and politicians have allowed taxpayer dollars to be wasted on basically thin air in a multitude of empty office spaces. Such bad and lazy priorities.
4)One last piece of insanity for today. We have had many discussions over the past few months over which major city (New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco) or state government (California, Illinois, New York , New Jersey) will go into bankruptcy first. A few of the most discussion on this bankruptcy race can be accessed at:
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-race-to-bankruptcy-court-hochuls.html
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-race-to-bankruptcy-seattle-and.html
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-race-to-bankruptcy-court-bears.html
Our view is that New York City and New York state will win their respective races to bankruptcy court. Both entities have been losing residents and businesses at an accelerating rate to areas with lower taxes, lower business regulation, lower crime rates, and a better quality of life, all of which reduces the city’s and state’s tax base which accelerates the run to bankruptcy.
But the race to bankruptcy court almost did happen in New York City back in the 1970s, a situation nicely described by the Rockefeller Institute:
In April, 1975, New York City ran out of cash when banks decided that they did not want to underwrite any city government notes or bonds, viewing them as worthless with the city out of cash to back them up.
President Ford at that time refused (an appropriate action) to make the American taxpayer bailout the city government.
The financial crisis was caused by over a decade of reckless spending beyond what the tax base could support, borrowing against the future, increased and unsustainable social spending, a shrinking tax base, and deceptive and creative accounting to hide the financial reality.
With the tax base shrinking, the city government and its politicians had to implement massive city employee layoffs, greatly reduce government services (police, fire, medical), and had to slash spending to get in alignment with the shrinking tax base.
As anyone who has read our posts above and the many other ones that we have written on the race to bankruptcy court, the above scenario as documented by the Rockefeller Institute is happening today. Consider New York City:
The current mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is proposing a city budget for the city’s 8 million residents that is greater than the state government budget for the entire state of Florida that has about three times as many residents.
Rather than making the city more efficient he is forging ahead with the heavy and expanded of funding of social spending, much like what was happening in 1975.
Residents and businesses were already fleeing the city because of heavy taxation, crime, and quality of life even before the current mayor took office and he has done nothing to lure them back or keep those that have not left yet much like in 1975.
Moody's has recently downgraded the city’s credit worthiness, much like the banks did back in 1975.
Rather than manage the size of the budget to realistic tax revenue expectations, the mayor is using the same creative accounting tricks from back in 1975 as he steals and borrows money from different rainy day financial buckets to fund current government operations.
It happened back in 1975, and the economic ignorance that pervades New York City’s current politicians will eventually have the same effect today: slashed government spending, slashed government services, a far smaller tax base to fuel an economic recovery, lower quality of life, etc.
And yes, we still maintain that both New York City and New York state will be the first city and state to go bankrupt among our top candidates.
Enough political class insanity for today: shades of NYC 1975 bankruptcy crisis reappearing today, taxpayers paying for vacant government office space, the Post Office heading for bankruptcy, and New York City spends more and gets less for its homeless population.
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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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