I remember being a broke college student during my senior year at The College of William & Mary. A group of us gathered at the Spanish House, the language immersion dorm where we lived, to brainstorm easy ways to make money. None of us had job offers yet, and we were anxious to prove to ourselves—and to our parents—that we hadn’t wasted four years.
One classmate joked, “What if we started a nonprofit called ‘Save The Children’? Who wouldn’t want to save children? We could raise a ton of money from private donors and the government. And then pay ourselves a million dollars each as directors!”
We all chuckled at the first glimpse of grift we’d concocted. Francisco would be the CEO, Pravster would be the CMO, and I would be the CFO. All our financial problems would be solved! With no money, our minds naturally drifted toward dubious ways of getting some.
Little did I realize then that government grift, or more precisely, graft, was pervasive all around the country. With the new administration and DOGE going after fraud and wasteful spending, it will be interesting how much comes out of their discoveries.
Goals Of This Post
- To explore government grift and understand why it persists
- To highlight the advantages of working for the government, given the bias toward private sector jobs
- To discuss the allure of power, money, and status, and why it can be dangerous if we don't let go of them
- To show how people naturally tend to take care of those most similar to themselves
- To question whether the government borrowing more money, raising taxes, and expanding the budget is the best path forward
- To examine how incentives drive human behavior
What Is Government Grift (or Graft)?
Government grift refers to the unethical or corrupt misuse of public funds or resources by government officials or those connected to the government. It can take many forms, including embezzlement, bribery, nepotism, or diverting public resources for personal gain.
Essentially, government grift involves exploiting one’s position in government for financial or material benefit, often at the expense of taxpayers or public interest. Grift not only erodes trust in public institutions, but it also leads to inefficiency, waste, and increased inequality.
The combination of large local budgets and concentrated power creates an irresistible temptation for financial gain.
As a personal finance writer, I understand why financial misconduct occurs—especially among politicians who didn’t grow up with wealth. Once in power, the temptation to leverage that influence for personal gain can be overwhelming. When surrounded by wealthy donors living extravagant lifestyles, it’s easy to start feeling entitled to the same. With power also comes the desire to also take care of those closest to you.
Bi-coastal grift: I invite you to share examples of grift within your local government in the comment section below so we can get a clearer picture of how widespread it is. My friends on the East Coast have NYC Mayor Eric Adams as a prime example of grift after his indictment on five federal public corruption charges.
First Experience with Government Grift in San Francisco, California
In 2005, I embarked on my first major home remodel by converting an upstairs closet into a full bathroom. The home I had just purchased only had one full bath and one quarter bath. Adding another full bath to better utilize the space was a no brainer. To make the remodel official, I chose to do everything to code with the proper city permits.
Hector, the general contractor recommended by my real estate agent, informed me that I needed to come up with $3,200 to pay a permit expediter. According to him, this was the only way to get my bathroom permit approved within the next six months. Not knowing any better, I paid the $3,200.
Sure enough, the permit was approved, and the job was completed in about three months. The very next year, however, I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that the permit expediter I paid had been sent to jail for accepting bribes! Holy crap—was my $3,200 actually a bribe?
It turns out that paying permit expediters was legal in San Francisco. However, this particular expediter had been pocketing extra money off the books. Private citizens had to pay extra to local government officials just to get their home updates done. And in turn, these instances drive up the cost of housing for everyone.
Once I realized this type of grift was occurring, ironically, I became more bullish on the San Francisco real estate market. I figured, the more corruption there is at the Department of Building inspection, the more expensive and difficult it is to build houses and expand. Therefore, home prices should continue to go up! And went up they inevitably did.
Government Grift Under Mayor London Breed
Over the years, I’ve come to realize the significant power that local politicians—especially mayors—hold.
In 2022, roughly 19.23 million people were employed by state and local governments in the U.S., compared to just 2.87 million working for the federal government. Clearly, there’s a large number of government employees in America, the vast majority of whom are honest and hardworking.
San Francisco alone has about 34,000 government employees. But as people rise through the ranks, they gain more power—and with power often comes temptation.
London Breed became the mayor of San Francisco in July 2018 after the sudden passing of Mayor Ed Lee. In 2023, she was the highest-paid mayor in all of California, earning a total compensation of $468,672. With no family to support, such a high salary offers a life of luxury.
Like Eric Adams, London Breed grew up poor in the Western Addition of San Francisco. Breed wrote of her childhood, “Five of us living on $900 per month. ‘Recycling' meant drinking out of old mayonnaise jars. Violence was never far away.” Her younger sister died of a drug overdose in 2006. Her brother, Napoleon Brown, is in prison serving a 44-year sentence for a 2000 conviction on charges of manslaughter and armed robbery.
Although Breed managed to victoriously break out of poverty, under Breed’s leadership, government grift has been rampant. Here are just five notable examples:
1) Mohammed Nuru Scandal (Breed's ex-boyfriend)
Mohammed Nuru, former Director of Public Works, was arrested by the FBI in 2020 for accepting bribes. Breed and Nuru were ex-lovers, and anyone who’s been in a relationship knows that pillow talk can reveal plenty of dirty secrets.
Later that same year, the FBI arrested Harlan Kelly, former Public Utilities Commission General Manager, for similar bribery accusations. These charges also implicated his wife, Naomi Kelly, former City Administrator.
2) Department of Building Inspection Corruption
In 2023, the FBI began charging multiple people at the Department of Building Inspection with bribery and corruption. The case is still ongoing, with more indictments on the horizon.
Will I ever see my $3,200 again for paying a permit expediter? Probably not. But if the city wants to mail me a refund for having to go through that corrupt process, feel free to send me a check.
3) Non-Profit Fraud For The Homeless
In May 2024, Patricia Doyle, a non-profit director for the homeless, and friend of Breed’s, was accused of receiving $105,000 from the city for work that was never completed. Doyle's organization was supposed to paint the Oasis Hotel, among other things, with the $105,000 received. Instead, that money was pocketed and used for other things.
“Providence [Foundation] ignored the clear anti-nepotism provision in the grant agreement” by hiring members of at least seven different families, including two of the executive director’s children and a child of the vice president of the board of directors, SF City Attorney Chiu said in the statement.
4) Human Rights Commission Cronyism
In August 2024, The Standard reported that Sheryl Davis, head of the Human Rights Commission, had approved $1.5 million in contracts with a nonprofit, Collective Impact, run by a man she lived with. The two shared a home address and a car, but claim not to be close. Despite rules requiring her to disclose such a relationship, she allegedly failed to do so.
Heads of organizations with contract-awarding power may be tempted to favor friends, family, and lovers. London Breed said she knew about the relationship and budgeted $300 million for the Dream Keeper Initiative to help her community starting in 2020. It is one thing to use your own money to help your friends. It's another to use taxpayer money.
In 2020, Mayor London Breed transferred $120 Million of taxpayers' money allocated to SFPD and used it to set up her pet project: The Dream Keeper Initiative. This act is one of a long list of race-based, unconstitutional programs and newly-created commissions she has been funding, in violation of state and federal law.
Breed's Dream Keeper Initiative targets and benefits one racial group specifically, which under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, discriminates against others not of that group. The reality is, there are many marginalized groups in San Francisco that could use help too. But we all know people in power like to take care of their own.
5) Living Large With Taxpayer Dollars
Another nonprofit, Both Sides of the Conversation, submitted invoices for Dream Keeper Initiative funds (Breed’s initiative with a $300 million budget) spent on expensive meals, liquor, and travel. The organization essentially received $900,000 from the city to host a podcast discussing race and run educational workshops with Dream Keeper Initiative partners.
As someone who runs a self-funded podcast (on Apple and Spotify) that takes hours to produce a single episode, I was intrigued! I'd happily accept just $800,000—a $100,000 discount from the Breed's Dream Keeper Initiative—just to primarily talk about race for 5.7% of the city’s population. Unfortunately, given I'm Hawaiian/Asian, I'm probably ineligible.
But the real perk isn’t just the $800,000 I could get—it’s the boondoggles on the government’s dime with all my listeners! As Milton Friedman once said, it's much easier to spend other people's money on yourself and other people. Check out some great examples below of expenses submitted by the non-profit organization to the city as reported by Gabe Gerschler from The Standard.
The invoices submitted by Both Sides of the Conversation include:
- $3,443 for first-class flights: a round-trip ticket from Chicago to San Francisco, a one-way ticket from Chicago to San Francisco, and a flight from San Francisco to Washington, D.C.
- $218 for a Blacklane “luxury chauffeur service” ride in Washington, D.C.
- $281 at San Francisco’s Old Clam House for crab cakes, pan-roasted salmon, and wine. Only one person is noted on the receipt.
- $1,420 at Kaliwa, a Southeast Asian restaurant in Washington, D.C. Tequila, bourbon, and wine account for $108 of the bill.
- $532 at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Walnut Creek for three guests ordering $50 plates of seabass, lobster macaroni and cheese, crab cakes, and barbecued shrimp. The bill includes $74 for cognac. The invoice is labeled as an “event consultant dinner” but the physical receipt says “Boyd Birthday.”
- $307 at Chicago-based steakhouse STK.
- $88 for one person at Afro-Caribbean restaurant Salamander in Washington. The bill includes tequila.
- $256 for tickets to “Soul Train” in San Francisco.
A Fun Way To Use Government Funds For My Podcast
If I manage to secure $800,000 in government funds from London Breed to run my podcast, we could host a listener event at The Wynn in Vegas! Picture this: recording an episode poolside, where the first 100 attendees who shares how their race impacted their upbringing gets a free drink ticket.
I'll then select the top five stories and treat the winners to dry-aged steaks at the iconic Golden Steer restaurant. Of course, in the interest of being responsible with taxpayer money, I'll kindly ask that my guests stick to one drink, one starter, one entrée, and one dessert shared between two people. After all, we need to maintain our washboard abs.
With such great success, I'd request another $800,000 from the Dream Keeper Initiative to take these events nationwide. Our first stop? Honolulu, Hawaii, where we can host team-building events by swimming with dolphins at Sea Life Park followed by dinner at La Mer. What a fun and meaningful way to raise awareness and foster a sense of community!
The Mayor of a City is More Invincible than the CEO of a Public Company
If you were the CEO of a public company, and this level of grift occurred under your watch, you’d be out the door without a severance package. Leaders must take responsibility for their organization’s problems, whether or not they were directly involved. This is commonsense as politicians work for the people.
For example, Travis Kalanick, the founder and CEO of Uber, along with several C-level executives, were either fired or left voluntarily after an ex-employee exposed a toxic work culture that had been long ignored. While Kalanick and the executives didn’t directly harass the employee, it happened on their watch.
However, if you’re the mayor of San Francisco, it seems there’s no need to take accountability for issues under your leadership. Instead, you deflect blame and run for re-election! Despite being part of the problem for six years, you somehow convince voters that you can fix it.
Too bad for London Breed, the graph that occurred under her watch was no longer acceptable by the residents of San Francisco. The people voted her out and replaced her with Daniel Lurie for 2025+.
A Healthy Government Salary—Plus Bribes on the Side
What makes government grift infuriating is that the individuals involved aren't struggling financially. We’re not talking about desperate illegal immigrants participating in staged car collision scams to make enough money to take care of their families. Although a double violation, such acts may be born out of necessity. In San Francisco, government employees are well paid.
The mayor earns about $469,000 in total compensation annually. But Breed isn’t the highest-paid city employee. That honor goes to Alison Romano, the Chief Executive and Investment Officer of the retirement services department. From July 2023 to June 2024, Romano made $842,000 in total compensation for managing the city’s pension funds. Fair enough, given she oversees a lot of money and she's not accused of grift.
Meanwhile, Police Sergeant Frank Harrell earned $765,000 last year, making him the third-highest paid government worker in San Francisco. His secret? A whopping $450,000 in overtime pay! It's safe to say Sgt. Harrell would scoff at anyone working just 40 hours a week and wondering why they can't get ahead.
Check out the chart below from the SF Chronicle, which shows how many San Francisco government employees make well over $300,000 a year. Add on another working spouse and the total household income is fantastic.
Government Pay Can Be Superior To Private Sector Pay
Working for the city government can be a sweet deal. You earn a solid salary, pile on overtime pay, take on a second job, get comped with free stuff, and still retire with a lifetime pension. If you're corrupt, you may have the opportunity to pocket some bribes on the side.
Meanwhile, private sector workers face no such luxuries—no pensions and no job security, paired with the constant threat of being fired without cause. It’s no wonder why a government job seems so appealing.
If you’re good at gaslighting the public into thinking you’re doing a great job, you can keep grifting for years. This is why everybody needs to improve their communication skills. You can talk your way into or out of almost anything.
In contrast, grifting is harder for CEOs to hide. With shareholders and stock prices reflecting performance, any big drop is an obvious red flag that something is wrong. The accountability is built in.
If we want to have less grift, we need to have more frequent elections. It's too easy for politicians to spend other people's money on their own interests.
A Lack Of Money Or The Desire for More
If you and your friends grew up poor and eventually find yourselves in positions of power, the temptation to grift can be high. Similarly, if you were well-off growing up, insatiable greed can lead to even greater acts of corruption.
Government grift stems from a complex web of power, human behavior, and systemic failures. When officials have unchecked access to resources, corruption tends to follow.
We must hold our politicians accountable, and they should hold themselves to the highest standard. If grift occurs repeatedly under their leadership, whether they participated in it or not, they ought to step down. But pride and the allure of power often make this unlikely.
In the end, as long as there's opportunity and voter apathy, government grift will persist. Voters often get the government they deserve. And when fighting against it becomes too challenging, it’s easy to see why some might consider joining in.
Update 1/18/2025: Former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao has been criminally indicted for bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and corruption following an FBI investigation. It’s amazing how much government grift their continues to be!
Reader Questions
Why do you think government grift persists? Why doesn't the public do more to hold political leaders to the same level of accountability as CEOs of publicly traded companies? How much does ideology and a large percentage of the population not paying taxes have to do with the pervasiveness of government grift? Have you befriended and donated to your local politician to consider grifting opportunities?
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My favorite example of grift is that of former government employees and/or politicians who benefit greatly after retirement/leaving office and being employed by the same corporations that are large govt contractors and/or donors. Consider Obama and Netflix or Lloyd Austin and Raytheon as recent examples.
I don’t have an actual grift, but as far as a proactive solution why don’t we offer free college at the community level for those interested and even perhaps prerequisite education to bring others up to speed so they can have a smooth transition into higher education. Possibly divert a bit of funds from the defense industry (Heaven forbid), or better yet, keep large companies from setting up their headquarters in foreign countries and use the taxes they should be paying to fund the initial two years of college.
Higher education will eventually lower poverty and break the cycle of creating that urge to steal/grift in the first place, not to mention help alleviate the necessity to sell drugs, thereby also lowering crime within lower income communities. Just a thought.
And then there are legal ways that politicians grift… think about all the wars and aggressions the US has been a part of for decades. And the politicians that vote for these endless wars, sending men and women to their death, while they see their investments in these war companies grow. Technically legal, but immoral.
Absolutely correct. Shipped off to war, then forgotten when they return (if they’re lucky to return at all).I forgot who said it, but if there were a law that each politician had to send their own child into the mess they were about to vote for, I don’t think war would be too popular on capital hill any more.
It took Five years to replace two miles of track MUNI track on Taraval Street in the Sunset. It took less than 4.5 years to complete the Golden Gate Bridge.
Contractors and politicians got really rich off this ridiculous project.
Middle class workers and those who don’t pay taxes are not enemies. Ruling class with power and wealth weaponizes each other for their own benefits. Government and corporations and billionaires have so much power that average Joe’s needs are not really considered although every Politian talks about it and claim they care. No party really cares about middle class workers, the working poor, or even the super poor, they just care about the votes. Things in the US get so complicated, so expensive, so ineffective that are beyond anybody’s capability to fix. Government grifts would continue, you may hope you are lucky or smart enough to be part of that (mostly reserved for the white I think, and literally no chance for Asians). There is not much hope for average workers in the US in the long run.
You hit the nail on the head with “so complicated.” And I get why it’s so complicated. Somebody does something bad or somewhat is unhappy about something, so legislation is passed as a political platform to stand on. Then it’s up to us. Bureaucrats to make it happen through a complex system of federal, state, county, and city government funding and legislation. It goes from the federal to the states to the counties to the cities. Not necessarily in that order. And each entity takes their 10% de minimus administrative cut along the way. It seems to be a necessary evil because if a program does happen to get through with no oversight, all the corrupt lawyers take all the money setting up shell non-profits and literally zero money goes to the people that are supposed to be helped. Sigh.
Was it implied that the middle class is the enemy in the post?
My question is wondering why voters continue to vote for politicians who practice graft. One of my theories is that maybe It’s because the voters are not paying a lot of taxes or any taxes and therefore are not hurt by the higher cost of things that arise from the cost of graft?
I don’t sense the middle class is the enemy in the post, just my general thought.
Voters vote for names not content, especially those who don’t pay a lot of taxes. They tend to be less educated, overwhelmed, scrap to survive, they don’t know or care who practice grift or not. Middle class tend to be more educated, still overwhelmed, and read a little more and maybe think a little more and may be more aware who practice grift, but still whoever gets elected, given long enough time, grift would happen. The grift is practiced by both parties anyway, but for a town where one party dominates, that could become really bad and unchecked. It is not easy to find towns with elected officials from both parties, that may reduce grift to a certain extent since both are watching for others’ mistakes.
The ETFs are NANC and CRUZ. Lolz. So invest in the one that’s in power at the time I guess.
Thank you for spotlighting this issue. As a government employee, I’m not sure what the solution is. I’m a peon so this kind of thing pisses us peons off. Most of us are fairly idealistic. We’re also pretty low paid compared to private industry standards but we do have that pension. But my pension is roughly 25% of the last 3 years of my annual salary. Of course the actual calculation is quite complicated LOL .We put into social security so I’ll be getting social security plus pension and every little bit helps. Even so people are constantly leaving for two or three times the pay and the option to work remotely. You can imagine how almost impossible it is to get decent IT employees in the Bay area under these working conditions. Some of us peons in the professional level job classes work lots of unpaid overtime. Then some of us peons are what you typically think of as low performing government employees and the rest of us pick up their slack.
So many factors go into this. The death of journalism. The apathetic electorate. The lack of staffing at federal levels. You could be a whistleblower but if there’s not enough federal staff to investigate then it’s pointless. That said. If I did come across evidence of corruption I would for sure report it. But I’m too busy doing my own job.
I think late stage capitalism leads to the kind of stuff you are talking about. Corporate America is far more inefficient and wasteful and it isn’t even close. The pharmaceutical industry in America is so corrupt that there are 20 layers of people that get a piece of the pie every time someone fills a prescription for a high cost drug. Selling pills that cost $5 to make for over $1000 is massive corruption and fraud. Other countries negotiate the price down to around $50 for that pill, but in the US insurance companies pay list price and pass the costs on to all of us.
Medicare is running out of money not because of mismanagement, but because the government is not allowed to negotiate lower drug costs for seniors. That is much worse than any local government scandal and the reason it is much worse is seniors are dying because of this corporate greed and nonsense. Only in America do we allow people to die without medicine so an entire class of people can get rich at their expense.
Government workers should have been shifted from guaranteed-benefit pensions to 401k-style pensions many years ago. This would have cut govt payments for pensions. Of course, that won’t happen.
You’re mistaken, at least for the government pension funds that I am familiar with. They are self-funded, employees pay into them out of their own paychecks, and even the administrative costs are paid for out of the pension fund and the pension investments.
Some employees have sticker shock when they see what a huge cut is taken out of their paychecks for the mandatory pension contribution. You can look up calpers for example. They are entities separate from the local government and their financial statements are separate.
Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio is the greatest grift of all time. So much so there’s now a public following of her stock trades executed by Paul Pelosi (click) along with other members of Congress. She should be criminally charged and held accountable for insider trading. Oh wait, the head of the SEC Gary Gensler is a Democrat appointed by Joe Biden so I guess any Dem is exempt from accountability of their actions
Can’t beat them, join them? There is a Nancy Pelosi ETF or fund I believe.
Everyone in San Francisco can trade stocks like Pelosi right? Every silicon valley CEO knows about AI and can make the exact same trades as a member of Congress, is everyone in San Francisco corrupt because they are rich? Or are they all rich because they live Silicon Valley and they are creating products that people like? The private sector is greedy and corrupt by design. The iPhone margins are insanely high, is it corrupt to maximize profits? I would say no, but others may disagree with that on principle.
Is it corrupt to guarantee health care for the citizens of California and for the citizens of the United States? Pelosi did that and saved lives. Does she still get to be a capitalist while at the same time doing some great socialist stuff as well?
https://missingmoney.solari.com/fasab-statement-56-understanding-new-government-financial-accounting-loopholes/
Standard 56 creates a set of situations where government entities may move numbers around to conceal where money is actually spent or even not report spending outright.
Here’s something to ponder. The cops pension will be 90% of the three highest years of compensation- including overtime. So the $750k annual salary is a gift that will keep on giving for the rest of his life.
Is it 90% and including the overtime pay? I actually don’t think so. All the same, even if it’s 70% of the last years’s pay, that’s pretty good.
The value of their pension is worth millions.
Sam,
The reason cops get paid well is supply and demand capitalism. In my area there is a shortage of people willing to work as teachers, cops etc and so a pension is one way to keep cops on the job. These pensions will be paid in inflated dollars and aren’t really that good of deal when you do the math. I would much rather have the money to invest and then keep all of it. With a pension you just get a small return on investment and once the payouts start they are locked in and not indexed to inflation.
My public pension is capped at a 2% annual COLA as most pensions are nowadays, so in years of 8% inflation the pension will not keep up, but 401k accounts and other retirement accounts will.
When reporter Edward R. Murrow retired in the early 1960s he was asked what he thought the biggest unreported story in the US was. His reply: corruption at the local government level.
Corruption and graft has been happening, probably since the beginning of recorded human history. Good luck getting rid of it, though people in SF can send a message in upcoming mayoral election..
Sam
Good thoughts this week on grift, just sold my house in a Cincinnati north suburb, one of the best neighborhoods and schools in Ohio.
Even in an upscale small city the temptations and power are hard to resist for some. We had a women on our town board that pushed through a development plan that the majority of the town’s people did not want. We told her in a council meeting, she told us more or less to sit down and shut up, and the plan had already been discussed and approved. So pushed through and approval was hers at the end of the day!
Can you guess who owned the development company that benefited from her actions. If you guessed her husband , you would be correct.
I have two personal experiences. One local and minor, one national and major. I had purchased a moderate amount of acreage and was building a nice house on the property. The acreage was already fenced. I wanted to put in a pool and the builder said it had to be fenced also to meet building codes. I asked him if the fencing around the property would be acceptable. He said he would check with the inspector. A couple of days later he came back and said that the inspector would allow that in return for a small “gift” – namely $500 cash which I paid.
The second experience some 30 years ago involved a powerful democrat on the U.S. House Ways and Means committee. I was with a national professional nonprofit organization holding a board meeting on the west coast. Since it was in the chairman’s home district we asked him to speak at a luncheon. He said his secretary would be in touch. She called and advised that his requirements were $2000 for the talk and four round trip first class airline tickets for him and his wife and his daughter and her husband from D.C. to LA. He spoke for ten minutes and took questions for ten minutes.
Grift in Orange County with Supervisor Do
The county filed a lawsuit alleging the businessperson, Thu Thao Thi Vu, conspired with the supervisor’s daughter Rhiannon Do and others to embezzle millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors.
Those public funds were directed by Supervisor Do to Viet America Society (VAS), a nonprofit that numerous public records show his daughter Rhiannon Do helped lead. LAist has uncovered more than $13 million directed by Supervisor Do to VAS.
https://stocks.apple.com/ACpFuDiWpQbu2Hq2KRW6mHQ
Here are some examples of corrupt American politicians:
Here are some recent examples of corruption cases involving American politicians:
1. **Duncan Hunter (California, 2020)**: The former Republican congressman from California pleaded guilty to using more than $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses, including family vacations, theater tickets, and school tuition. He was sentenced to 11 months in prison.
2. **Rick Snyder (Michigan, 2021)**: The former governor of Michigan was charged with willful neglect of duty over his role in the Flint water crisis, during which the city’s water supply was contaminated with lead, affecting thousands of residents. The crisis was linked to decisions made by his administration to save money.
3. **Bob Menendez (New Jersey, 2023)**: The Democratic senator was indicted for allegedly accepting bribes in the form of cash, gold bars, and luxury items in exchange for using his political influence to benefit business associates. This is his second major corruption case; he was previously tried in 2017, though the case ended in a mistrial.
4. **Mike Madigan (Illinois, 2022)**: The former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives was indicted on racketeering charges, accused of participating in a long-running bribery scheme where he allegedly received benefits from companies in exchange for legislative favors.
Don’t pay more taxes than you have to. Don’t support larger government either. Politicians are money, hungry, and egomaniacs. You need to be to become one.
Don’t forget some of the Supreme Court Justices – these are guardian and interpreters of constitution!
I think the NOLA Mayor Latoya Cantrell got investigated for similar charges.
May be “Public Official 1” named in today’s indictment of former city inspector Randy Farrell on a host of federal corruption charges.
A police sergeant earning more than the chief? How many hours did this guy work? Doing what? Makes you wonder what is going on and how effective that he was. Working extra is hard. But, at some point, there is a law of diminishing returns. BTW, a DC Councilman was just arrested for bribery. Go figure.
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I guess around 70+ hours a week as a 50+-year-old man. Impressive! Of course he is working hard every hour to keep us safe :-)
I’m from a suburb of Baltimore, Md. Baltimore City has to rank highly on the grifter list.
Absolutely horrible. It shows…..Nobody wants to go near the city any longer. Embarassed to call it a hometown.
What are specific examples of grift? I really enjoyed The Wire!
“If we want to have less grift, we need to have more frequent elections.”
And SMALLER government….
It’s true that the pressure to provide favors and kickbacks once you get to power is immense. London Breed and other mayors are always trying to raise money (Breed asking Altman and Benioff for $25 million for pandas) to try and look good for the public and retain power.
I’m sure Breed’s friends and community growing up want to get some of that $15 billion in SF annual budget money too. But now it’s unraveling quick.
It’s amazing more of taxpaying citizens don’t care to get new leadership.
I’m familiar with the meaning of grift but this is the first time I’ve learned the word itself.
I love that video of Milton Friedman because what he’s saying is absolutely true. We’ve all heard many stories of foreign governments that are run full of corruption. But to see it in our own backyards is so incredibly shocking, disappointing, and down right disturbing. Thanks for spreading awareness because leaders need to be held accountable. It’s also very true that public companies are run so differently than the government.
Let’s hope that more transparency and more people getting caught will help stop all of this government shadiness and waste of taxpayers money. If people lose all trust in the government, we will be headed for a very troubled place.
I’ve always thought we need to get tough on white collar crime. While the death penalty may be a bit too harsh for governmental corruption, we need to create some serious penalties. They cause more people more harm than just some kid robbing people.
Sam, whom would you endorse for SF mayor? I’d be interested to hear your analysis of the other candidates.
What are your thoughts? I’d love to get input from readers to gain more perspective.
Part of the answer has to do with whether you think you might gain from government grift or not. Thanks
I haven’t decided yet, even after listening to the mayoral debate. The whiff of impropriety bothers me but I’m not convinced the other candidates would be better. I also think it takes time for policies to play out so some stability at the top isn’t a bad idea. I have no personal or business connection to SF government other than being a longtime resident.
I think if you want more of the same, then you vote for London breed. Based on your comment, and the polls, it seems majority of residents don’t mind the grift. So I think she will probably get reelected.
But I don’t think Daniel Lurie, given his wealth, would try to siphone money to his people and programs given he is so rich already.
And if you own real estate San Francisco, then the continued corruption at the Department of Building Inspection should help real estate prices go up further it will continue to be hard to expand and build.
There is a flaw in this thinking, ” since he is so rich already” lol. But I agree SF should oust politicians with a grift track record. This should not be tolerated.
Who would your choice be and why?
I don’t live in SF so I have no idea. If I lived in SF I would definitely not vote for Breed based on the graft. I would vote for the other one whoever that was. Then if the other one was found to be financially corrupt, I would vote that person out and vote for the other one LOL. Very binary decision on my part LOL.
Sometimes I feel like us peon idealistic bureaucrats are the last bastions of the idea of integrity and civil service and respecting taxpayer money. So graft really pisses me off. I joke to my friends that they can feel good that at least a few pennies of their taxes go to me LOL