{"id":30403,"date":"2023-12-06T12:32:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T20:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30403"},"modified":"2023-12-06T12:32:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T20:32:19","slug":"breed-announces-budget-cuts-as-dorsey-plays-the-cops-tax-card-in-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/12\/06\/breed-announces-budget-cuts-as-dorsey-plays-the-cops-tax-card-in-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Breed announces budget cuts as Dorsey plays the \u2018cops tax\u2019 card in campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The city has a $1 billion budget problem, and only a total tax overhaul will fix it.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By TIM REDMOND<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DECEMBER 4, 2023 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor London Breed made an announcement today that demonstrates the deep problems with the move by Sup. Matt Dorsey to lock police spending into the City Charter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the more conservative Democrats are trying to use the bogus concept of a \u201ccop tax\u201d to change local politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorsey wanted to guarantee funding for 2,300 officers, a prospect that would cost as much as $300 million a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His measure was amended to link that goal to a funding source\u2014something that Dorsey and others have described as a \u201ccop tax.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sup. Matt Dorsey says new funding for police is a \u2018cop tax,\u2019 but there\u2019s no way to fund his proposal with existing revenue except with radical cuts to other services.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Breed\u00a0just announced a series of preliminary cuts<\/a>\u00a0that will get much, much deeper as the city faces what could be a $1 billion deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have asked Dorsey what existing services he would cut to add $300 million to the police budget. He\u2019s usually pretty responsive to the news media, including me, but he never answered that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now the whole \u201ccop tax\u201d thing<\/a> is going to be a big issue in the spring elections and in the supes race. Dorsey, who is part of a more conservative slate running for Democratic County Central Committee, sent out an email today including this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I meant every word of my 2022 campaign slogan, which committed to keep \u201cfighting for a Safer San Francisco\u201d \u2014 including the word \u201cfighting.\u201d In fact, you may have seen that once again over the last week as I\u2019ve stood up to an obstructionist Board of Supervisors majority<\/a> whose cynical \u201cCop Tax\u201d scheme is delaying needed progress on police recruiting and public safety imperatives.I\u2019m not backing down on fulfilling the promise of a fully staffed police department, and you can expect to hear more from me and my allies about that soon.

But to make progress on everything we\u2019re trying to accomplish, San Francisco will need the full partnership of a strong, effective and unapologetically mainstream Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that the Police Department is only part of the city\u2019s public-safety system, and much of the rest is also deeply underfunded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than that, the city has an existing tax structure based so deeply on downtown real estate that in the next year or two, we need either to radically overhaul the way we raise revenue (including new taxes, not just for cops but for all basic services) or face dramatic and crippling cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never mind the reality, though: The concept of a \u201ccop tax\u201d is going to be a talking point for the Right in San Francisco this spring. We are already seeing that happen\u2014and we are not seeing the major news media do anything to counter it.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city has a $1 billion budget problem, and only a total tax overhaul will fix it. By TIM REDMOND DECEMBER 4, 2023 (48hills.org) Mayor London Breed made an announcement today that demonstrates the deep problems with the move by Sup. Matt Dorsey to lock police spending into the City Charter…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1559],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30405,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30403\/revisions\/30405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}