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San Francisco’s balanced budget offers cautious optimism

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San Francisco has a balanced budget deal. And Mayor Daniel Lurie has taken another step toward the recovery of one of America’s greatest cities, after years of hard times.

The California Post noted in June that Lurie had offered a budget that would avoid more layoffs while also giving a raise to police and firefighters.

He also trimmed the massive amount of money that the city was spending on nonprofit organizations, which are often just political groups in a charitable disguise.

Critics point to the staggering size of the new budget, which has soared to $17 billion. In a city of just over 800,000 residents, that’s more than $20,000 in spending per resident.

There’s no reason a city government needs to be that big. And if a city spends that much money, residents should be enjoying platinum-level services.

Needless to say, we’re a long way from that.

But we’re also some distance away from the worst days of the post-COVID lull, when city streets were eerily empty at lunchtime, except for........

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