3 SF supervisors move to put tech tax on November ballot
sfgate.com
sfgate.com
Perhaps the city should re-think on the effectiveness of such programs. My biggest problem with the programs is that they are indirect and empower bureaucracies rather than the people they are purported to serve. For instance, housing subsidies are incredibly inefficient. The programs (in NYC at least) often provide a housing subsidy in a very popular neighborhood. So for instance, market rent could be $4,000 but subsidized rent would be $1,000 for a net transfer of $3,000. If the landlord had an option of paying < $3,000 and being able to rent the apartment at market rent, he would surely prefer that option. As an alternative, if that family received a direct $3,000 subsidy, the family would likely only use a portion of those funds to pay for better housing. Too many transfer programs that allocate a particular good have that problem and are highly inefficient. I doubt an extra $100 mm would provide any meaningful changes to many.
[0] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record...
Sounds so effective and generous! I bet it's the best place in the world to be homeless no?
But then we read:
"Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations"
Ah... it's a bureaucrat job program, nothing more.
All that money not being spent on homeless people.
I can understand why each step of this process (bringing people to services, ejecting those that are unmanageable in order to maintain the order required to help the others. As a systematic process, however, it's obscene: it protects the industry while fanning the flames of the crisis, which, in turn, builds support for more funds for homeless non-profits.
[0]"Ten percent (10%) of respondents reported they were living out of state at the time they lost their housing. Nineteen percent (19%) reported they were living in another county in California. Six percent (6%) reported they were living in Alameda County at the time, 3% San Mateo, 2% Marin, 2% Contra Costa and 1% Santa Clara County."
http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San%...
Second, while 71% did have homes previously in San Francisco, it does not follow that the remaining 29% "were bussed in by the homeless service industry from other areas". SF is known for having stronger support for the homeless, so homeless might well actively seek to travel to SF from other areas -- that's especially unsurprising for those from other Bay Area counties, which make up nearly half of the 29%. Second, there've been recurring cases of cities shipping out the homeless (either in general, or indigent mentally ill, in particular) to other jurisdictions -- including, often, SF. (This is them being bussed by someone, but not the homeless service industry.)
It's 23% - still 1 in 4 - that were in homeless shelters in SF before they were homeless, that were formerly from elsewhere.
Campos's policies just defy rational thought. Last year he wanted to completely ban any housing construction in the Mission[1]. At the same time he's been actively campaigning and advocating for homelessness centers, and declaring a "state of emergency" for the homeless in SF[2].
I honestly can't reconcile how somebody can logically say "homelessness is terrible, we need to do something about it" followed by "we shouldn't build any houses". He wants to have his cake and eat it: complain about how the homeless are (in his words) "pushed into the Mission", and then refuse to allow any homes to be built that could potentially house them (via affordable housing requirements).
This is a man who believes[3] that the recent spate of fires in the mission is a deliberate arson campaign by landlords to evict their tenants, rather than the actual reason, which is many of the buildings in the Mission are a) made of wood, b) old, and c) lack modern safety systems like sprinklers and good alarm systems.
[1]: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Campos-wants-moratoriu... [2]: http://abc7news.com/news/sf-supervisor-declares-state-of-eme... [3]: http://www.sfexaminer.com/why-is-the-mission-burning/
> Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agencys budget were cut, what would it do? It would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would most likely get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place. [0]
By fixing the problem by allowing more housing, the politician would be able to extract less resources and power from the population. Never let a crisis go to waste. Or perhaps I'm being overly cynical in characterizing the political process.
[0] http://www.heraldandtribune.com/oped/benedict-arnold-statues...
Unfortunately, they may feel good or vindicate people's frustrations but do little to actually work to alleviate the issue. This is more of that tact.
"Hey, Bob, did you know the voters of SF reset the payroll tax to zero? We can totally tax it now!"
Why a tech-specific tax, though? Seems like a general one would avoid the problem of line drawing, avoid the problem of causing resentment in specific industries, and spread the burden out more generally.
"The measure identifies tech companies by the type of tax code they use under the Internal Revenue Service’s North American Industry Classification System. Companies classify themselves. They may face penalties if a government audit finds they are misidentifying themselves."
Ahh, to dream.....
You mean, their stated rationale for the introduction? Because their actual beliefs and their actual reason for the introduction may be very different, and often is a matter of controversy.
Why is it when I the nerd finally get a job where I could afford to live in SF instead of some east bay suburb, they don't want me to live there and want to do everything in their power to keep me from doing so? XD