The city's fiscal hole is enormous — we're not talking about a rounding error or a bad quarter. Six hundred million dollars. That's roughly the GDP of a small island nation, and it's the gap between what San Francisco spends and what it actually has. A responsible response might involve, say, auditing bloated departments, trimming duplicative programs, or asking whether every dollar the city spends is actually producing results. Instead, Chan wants to protect the status quo and presumably close the gap with — what, exactly? New taxes? More fees? Vibes?

This is the fundamental problem with San Francisco governance: the refusal to distinguish between spending and investment. Not every line item in the city budget is sacred. Some programs work. Some don't. A $14 billion annual budget should be able to absorb strategic cuts without anyone losing essential services — if leaders are willing to make hard choices instead of retreating to the comfort of "no cuts, ever."

Meanwhile, a new study suggests it could take a century for San Francisco to build its way to housing affordability, even under the most YIMBY-friendly policies. That's a sobering number, but as one local put it, "We plant trees even though they take a long time to grow." Another SF resident framed it well: "It took 50 years to make this city as unaffordable as it is now, so don't expect it to turn around tomorrow." Fair enough — but the fiscal discipline required to actually invest in long-term housing supply is impossible when elected officials refuse to prioritize spending.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: you can't simultaneously demand more housing, better infrastructure, and improved public safety while also insisting that a government running a $600 million deficit doesn't need to cut a single thing. Math doesn't care about your politics.

San Francisco doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a prioritization problem. Until supervisors are willing to say "this program isn't working" with the same energy they say "no more cuts," taxpayers will keep footing the bill for a city that spends like there's no tomorrow — while tomorrow's problems just keep compounding.