I'm in San Francisco for the weekend, visiting family and friends. Everywhere you go, people want to talk about the economy. The San Francisco Chronicle led yesterday with a story about how all of the city departments apparently are eager to swoop down on the city transit system to glom some cash. The Muni is evidently the only public facility that's making money – or at least, taking in relatively large sums of it each day – and it is therefore perceived as a possible lifeline by other departments starved for cash, including the police and fire departments. A friend of mine who works as a librarian in the main facility says that funds earmarked for her department are similarly in jeopardy of expropriation because the library, while not in budgetary surplus, enjoys sufficient private funding to have at least stayed solved until now.

It's hard to believe that the Muni, for all its squalor and seediness, would be looked on as a cash cow. San Francisco itself is looking pretty run down -- not so much in the tourist areas, but the neighborhoods.  The grassy median of Geary Boulevard, a major east-west artery that stretches from downtown to the ocean, is strewn with trash, and the asphalt is full of cracks and potholes. The locals must be wondering how the streets could have fallen into such disrepair, even as the fees and fines the city collects from motorists have ratcheted into the stratosphere. Where did all of that money go? 

Scenes from Blade Runner

BART riders might be wondering the same thing. I took BART from downtown San Francisco to the East Bay yesterday and could scarcely believe how squalid the system had become. The train looked so shabby it could have been used as a set in the dystopian film Blade Runner. The upholstery and carpeting were stained and tattered, drunks and punks were sprawled all over the seats, and a station restroom was out of order. So, evidently, was the Rockridge depot elevator, which failed to arrive after repeated attempts to summon it by an enormous man in a wheelchair.

The State of California is in even worse shape, inundated by a torrent of red ink. Despite the relatively drastic cuts in spending that have been made so far, Sacramento has been unable to close the gaping hole in its budget. It has told taxpayers to hold off filing for refunds, since there is no money in the till to pay such claims.  There are probably a half-dozen states in similarly dire shape, although the dollar size of California's problem dwarfs them all.  California et al. are looking to the U.S. Government for a bailout, but it had better happen soon, since it is only a matter of time before American realize that the U.S. itself is broke.

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-- Posted Sunday, 8 February 2009 | Digg This Article