San Diego may cancel its beloved Christmas festival, December Nights, under a cost-cutting proposal by Mayor Todd Gloria.
The city faces a deficit of $146 million. So Gloria said no to “In Excelsis Deo” on Noël.
Residents are angry. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to Balboa Park for this event every year.
It’s part of the holiday season in Southern California, just like a cool sunset on the beach. Now the people of the “best city in America” may have to do without Christmas celebrations.
But this budget crisis did not come out of nowhere.
As local media has noted over the past few weeks, San Diego has spent like crazy on middle management positions in city government over the past decade.
In 2015, there were 70. Now, there are 400, According to Fox 5 San Diego.
Many mid-level city government workers earn more than $200,000 a year, more than the city council members created their jobs.
It’s the same budget problem that appears everywhere Democrats govern.
They added employees, perhaps so they could distribute patronage jobs. Then the Biden administration gave them loads of “emergency” money to combat the coronavirus, even though the first Trump administration had already spent trillions of dollars to keep local governments and small businesses afloat.
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The Democrats in charge then made the comfortable assumption that the new “emergency” spending levels would serve as the new baseline. The good times will last forever.
Unfortunately, they didn’t. California and many cities within it began to feel the pinch even before Biden left office.
With the Trump administration cutting wasteful federal spending, these governments are now feeling the pinch.
Now some voters in San Diego are talking about recalling Gloria. It’s worth reminding them that Gloria was the greatest Democratic hope when he was elected in 2020.
He was a host of “firsts”: the first person of color to serve as mayor; First gay mayor; And so on.
He replaced Republican Kevin Faulconer, a moderate Republican who clashed with Trump but ran the city well.
Faulconer in turn replaced Bob Filner, who brought Democrats the prize of victory in the city, but left office in disgrace over sexual misconduct allegations.
San Diego chose Democrats. These Democrats then chose wasteful spending – on expensive, expensive bureaucrats.
Now Democrats want to cancel Christmas.
Let’s do the math. Have we learned our lesson yet?