How All Americans Are Paying for San Francisco’s Pork-Barrel Spending
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The federal government isn’t the only source of political pork. Many states and localities also play fast and loose with public resources.
A pair of recent series of stories from San Francisco have highlighted the wealthy city’s severe mismanagement.
On Feb. 8, the city celebrated that they had lowered the cost of a public bathroom from $1.7 million to $725,000, when a more reasonable fee would be a fraction of that amount.
On Feb. 9, the website Pirate Wires released an expose on San Francisco’s $100 million-per-year web of bureaucrats and left-wing nonprofit groups that focus on political crusades such as gender ideology, “racial equity” and identity-based cash handouts.
It would be one thing if these were purely paid for by residents of the high-wealth city. However, San Francisco benefits from the more than $1.2 trillion in transfers that the federal government gives to state and local governments every year.
Similar to San Francisco, many federal programs for localities are captured by ideologues.
The Highway Trust Fund now pays for frivolities such as hiking trails and bike lanes, and the Biden administration has added inappropriate carve-outs for “environmental justice” and “diversity, equity and inclusion” to infrastructure projects.
Tens of billions of federal dollars per year for social services, welfare and “community development” provide means for local politicians to dole out favors while trapping poor neighborhoods in cycles of dependency.
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