The Greenberg Brief: Breedonomics – Shameful Spending Justifies Ousting the Mayor

There’s mounting evidence that not only does San Francisco Mayor London Breed perpetuate fiscal mismanagement, but even further, she has herself instigated rampant unlawful and unconstitutional spending of taxpayers’ funds. A recent expose by Piratewires (much paralleling deep dives undertaken by yours truly) is bearing witness to an out-of-control spending spree Breed began in earnest back in 2020.

Let’s examine the time period between 2016 and 2024; the City of San Francisco’s annual operating budget has exploded. Mayor Breed did not take office until July of 2018, but the documented acceleration of costs to run the city’s departments, agencies, and the funding of hundreds of nonprofits increased at a truly insane pace.

We are told repeatedly that our city of 850,000 residents requires greater government spending, as San Francisco is both a city and a county. The vast majority of locales around California have separate expenditure and government structure separating and dividing city and counties. Though true, Denver, CO is also a city and county, with a far, far lower annual budget that San Francisco.

Efficiency is a concept Mayor Breed refuses to adopt. Growing city government though new commissions is her preference; in fact, it’s the norm. Of course, the burden on taxpayers becomes more oppressive. Taxes (often as a punitive measure, high permit fees, real estate transfer taxes, fines, parking tickets etc.) need to be ever increased, and we see periodic bond measures pop up to fund massive projects for voter approved as well.

Digging into the US Census Bureau reports, San Francisco had a population of 871,000 in 2016. That was the year I myself first started paying attention to local politics in earnest, and it makes a good starting point to analyze the explosive growth of the operating budget. That year, London Breed was on the Board of Supervisors, and Ed Lee was mayor. Then, Breed won election as mayor in 2018. As Covid loomed, there were nearly 900,000 residents. Now, the government estimates San Francisco has dropped down to 808,000 due to a variety of factors we all have come to know: crime, homelessness, drug dealers and addicts, and a work-from-home/remote work phenomenon altering the office and residence environment allowing people to keep their jobs even if hundreds or thousands of miles from their company’s headquarters. San Francisco has lost close to 10% of its population. Our downtown Financial District feels like a ghost town.

At the same time as our big population decline under Breed, the city’s budget began explosive growth. The mayors’ office data shows for 2016, then Mayor Lee proposed a $9.6 Billion budget. Today, with London Breed in control (July 2018 onward), it’s now at $14.6 Billion, early a 50% increase. For a population which has lost 10% of its residents. And yet, for some in City Hall, this appalling cost is still not nearly enough. (Of course, this line of reasoning is pure lunacy).

Inflation is not the reason. Increased costs of goods does not add up to 50% spike in the budget.

Mayor Breed has instituted massive spending on unaccountable projects, homelessness and drug addiction-related nonprofits with highly compensated executives and attempts to implement portions of the Reparations Plan without calling it reparations. Essentially, Breed aims to recklessly redistributed taxpayers’ funds while turning a blind eye to how and to whom it is spent. Yet even with mounting pressure from the public, she feigns accountability; she dismisses any need for it, ignores calls for intervention.

Welcome to Breedonomics, ladies and gentlemen.

Damning evidence has been available to us hiding in plain sight. Published reports from the city hall agencies themselves lay out mayor Breed’s misdeeds. Funds allocated to the Human Rights Commission, an agency of the mayor’s office, is the umbrella “sponsor” of the city’s Reparations Plan, The Dream Keeper Initiative (DKI); the Office of Transgender Initiatives, and Department on the Status of Women to name a few. Several are race-based programs under increased scrutiny for violating of state and federal constitutional and supreme court rulings. Yet Breed pushes full steam ahead on funding those projects, from $11 Million in 2018 to $45 Million for 2024.

Here’s the very real danger: This is an election year and come November, London Breed could be re-elected. For those of us paying attention, it is inconceivable how she could be rewarded with a return to office for another four years. Even with the evidence, much of local media continues posturing her as leading the city out of the “Doom Loop,” making headway, so just give her a break and give her a chance with another term. There are also plenty of supporters in San Francisco donating to her re-election campaign as well as an outside PAC supporting her.

That’s the tone-deaf message – that somehow London Breed is doing a great job. She’s not, her spending is shameful – and voters best be prepared come November to send her packing.