President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while still New York state’s governor in 1932, warned: “Any government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse.”
The Ides of March is behind us (March 15), plus the 15th day of May, July and October, await under the ancient Roman calendar, so we can relax, think about the Giants’ opening day on April 5 at Oracle Park and Earth Day and Passover on April 22.
As we prepare to pay our federal and state income taxes pursuant to two extensions granted this year by the always-benevolent Internal Revenue Service and Franchise Tax Board, I’m reminded of quips meriting reiteration, such as: “Sorry people feel the government owes them a living! The rest of us would gladly settle for a small tax refund.”
A perk of serving as one of Mayor London Breed’s appointees to the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center’s board of trustees is the availability of complimentary tickets to performances by the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Ballet companies. One trustee, former jurist and growling, frequently scolding, public purse watchdog, the proud curmudgeon Quentin Kopp, has taken advantage of this perk since joining the board in October 2021, and the California Form 802 monthly disclosures listing the number of free seats he’s received needs sunshining.
Between state legislators in Sacramento, like Senator Scott Weiner and Assemblyman Matt Haney, and our spirited supervisors in City Hall, plus their obsequious, obnoxious YIMBY (i.e., “Yes In My Backyard”) cheerleaders, the clamor for housing monopolizes airwaves, the San Francisco Comical and State Capitol minions who’ve decreed that San Francisco must produce 82,000 new housing units by 2030. Why?
On April 19, 1972, John B. Connally, Jr., then-U.S. secretary of the treasury, declared at the American Society of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington, D.C.: “A democracy unsatisfied (by support of the people] cannot long survive…. We live in )robably the most turbulent and tormented times in the history of this nation. Criticize … disagree, yes, but also we have as leaders an obligation to be fair and keep in perspective what we are and what we hope to be.”
It has been a new year at City Hall where Supervisor Aaron Peskin from Telegraph Hill was elected president after 11 roll call votes by our district heroes, almost tying Congressman Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield for roll call votes. This columnist wishes President Peskin two years of leadership achievement. My hero, U.S. President Harry Truman, once reminded Americans: “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, imagination and all the unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”
Herbert Hoover was the first U.S. president to give his salary back to the government (after the Great Depression commenced in his first year of office in October, 1929). Now the U.S. government would like everyone to do it!
It has been observed: “How do you know when a politician is lying?” The answer is: “When he (or she) opens his (or her) mouth!”
To suggest that there is any similarity between Proposition 1 and the act signed by Gov. Reagan (actually in 1967, not 1970) is preposterous. Judge Kopp must know that the 1967 act, which the sponsors said would reduce the number of abortions in California, was nullified, along with all other state abortion laws, by Roe v. Wade.
The California legislature adjourned Sept. 30, but the condescending SF Board of Supervisors reconvened after Labor Day, ready to repudiate good government at taxpayer expense and act imperialistically with its six-figure annual salary plus pension and medical benefits.
I think it’s timely to recommend (as I traditionally have done since my first year on the Board of Supervisors in 1972), ballot measure votes and candidate elections.
Following my last musing about the deplorable results of such ward elections and their rise under threat of California Voting Rights Act litigation in such small cities as Millbrae, San Bruno, South San Francisco, Foster City and Redwood City, I discovered a possible silver lining.
In his latest penned annunciation, Mr. Quentin Kopp makes some allegation that district elections for San Francisco city supervisors are equivalent to “dirty” ward politics that is beneath the grandeur of the city of San Francisco. I’m paraphrasing.
… we should be ever grateful that his voice is still strong. San Francisco would be infinitely poorer without him.
